Philip the Tetrach

PHILIP THE TETRARCH (4 B.C.–34 A.D.): Son of Herod the Great and of Cleopatra, a woman of Jerusalem. He was educated in Rome. For his tetrarchate and rule see Herod and his Family, II., § 3. He was a gentle and gracious prince, who always resided in his own territories and was ever ready to give aid and justice to his people. Philip's coins bear the representation of the emperor and the device of a temple, which is more probably the temple of Augustus at Cæsarea than the sanctuary at Jerusalem. His reign of thirty-seven years was almost contemporaneous with the life of Jesus, who sometimes traversed Philip's dominions. When the latter died in 33 or 34 A.D., his land became a part of the province of Syria and was administered as an imperial domain.

There is some difficulty in bringing Mark vi. 17 (Matt. xiv. 3) into agreement with Josephus, Ant., xviii. 137, where Philip is said to have married Salome, the daughter of his brother Herod Antipas and of his niece Herodias, while Mark makes Philip the first husband of Herodias herself, and states that she left him to marry Herod. Some interpreters suppose that two sons of Herod the Great bore the name of Philip, one of them being also called Herod; others again think that there must be some error either in Josephus or in Mark. It is probable that the latter confused two brothers, one of whom was the father and the other the husband of Salome.

E. von Dobschütz.

Bibliography: Consult the literature under Herod and his Family, and add to that S. Mathews, Hist. of New Testament Times in Palestine, New York, 1899.