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Tetrarch (2)

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

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TETRARCH (τετράρχης is the classical form, but in NT the MS evidence is strongly in favour of τετραάρχης [Tisch., WH [Note: H Westcott and Hort’s text.] , and Nestle]).—The title is used in the Gospels of Antipas (Matthew 14:1, Luke 3:1; Luke 3:19; Luke 9:7), and of Philip and Lysanias (Luke 3:1). Originally it denoted the ruler of a fourth part of a country or province. Euripides (Alc. 1154) is the earliest writer to use the term τετραρχία, and applies it to Thessaly, which in primitive times was divided for civil administration into four districts. This arrangement was restored in the constitution given by Philip of Macedon (Demos. Philipp. iii. 26, where the word is clearly technical and free from the doubt in which Euripides leaves it). A similar system was met with in Galatia, where each of the three tribes had its four tetrarchs (Strabo, 430, 566 f.). Pompey afterwards reduced the number to three, one for each tribe, but retained the original title (Appian, Mithridat. 46). Thenceforward, if not at an even earlier date, the name lost its etymological meaning, and could be applied to any petty dependent prince, subordinate in rank to kings but enjoying some of the prerogatives of sovereignty (Cic. pro Milone, xxviii. 76; Hor. Sat. i. iii. 12; Tac. Ann. xv. 25; et al.). Such tetrarchs seem to have been numerous, especially in Syria. Antony conferred the title upon both Herod and his brother Phasael (Josephus Ant. xiv. xiii. 1, BJ i. xii. 5); but the rank was almost purely titular, and left them inferior in dignity to the high priest, Hyrcanus ii. In b.c. 30 another brother, Pheroras, was made tetrarch of Peraea (Josephus Ant. xv. x. 3), he nominal honour being maintained on an income granted by Herod himself. In the Gospels the etymological signification of the term has evaporated. For, though Herod divided his kingdom into four parts, the one assigned to Salome consisted merely of a palace with the revenue of certain so-called free towns, and was in no sense a tetrarchy. With this exception, his kingdom was divided into three parts, and the title of ‘tetrarch’ was conferred by the will of Rome upon Antipas and Philip, whilst that of ‘ethnarch,’ or recognized head of a nation, was similarly bestowed upon Archelaus. On two occasions Antipas is styled ‘king’ (Matthew 14:9; cf. Matthew 14:1, Mark 6:14; Mark 6:22; Mark 6:26 f.); and the obvious explanation is that his subjects were encouraged, and some of them perhaps disposed, to speak of him by the higher title, for which Rome had substituted a lower, without any allusion to its strict meaning. Similarly in the case of Lysanias. He was ruler of the district of Abila in the Lebanon, which had been severed from the kingdom of Ituraea on the execution of Lysanias i. in b.c. 36. That kingdom was in the course of time broken up into three parts, of which Abilene formed one, with another Lysanias as its tetrarch (Josephus Ant. xviii. vi. 10, xix. v. 1; CIG [Note: IG Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum.] 4521, 4523). The term may have been selected because of the smallness of the district in comparison with the earlier kingdom, but it preserves no record of the division of a country or association of tribes into four parts. In the Gospels the tetrarch is merely a petty prince, dependent upon Rome for the retention of his few emblems of sovereignty, whilst encouraged to self-repression and loyal service by an occasional promotion to a higher dignity.

R. W. Moss.