By Clement Harrold

August 27, 2026

August 29 is the obligatory Memorial of the Passion of St. John the Baptist.

In the old liturgical calendar, it was known as the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist. The celebration dates back to at least the early fifth century.

John the Baptist was a saint who spoke truth to power and was a fearless witness to God’s law. While the story of his life invites us to fix our hearts on Christ, it also reminds us of some of the less savory characters who appear in the pages of the New Testament.  

Here we’ll examine what we know about three of these men: Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, and Pontius Pilate.

Herod the Great

Herod the Great was the client king of Judea at the time of John’s birth.

He was Idumean (Edomite) by ethnicity, Jewish by religion, and Roman by political appointment. His lengthy reign—roughly 36–1 BC—was marked by a series of massive building projects, including the construction of the mountaintop fortress Masada as well as the renovation and expansion of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. The famous Western Wall is believed to have been begun by Herod.

When the Roman legions conquered Jerusalem under the general Pompey in the year 63 BC, Judea came under the control of the Roman Republic.  

Herod’s father was friendly with Julius Caesar, and Herod himself was on good terms with various high-ranking Roman officials. When a power struggle occurred in Judea around 40 BC, Herod fled to Rome, only to be unexpectedly appointed King of the Jews by the Roman Senate.  

Herod returned to Jerusalem with a large army and established himself as the basileus (king) of the surrounding region. His kingdom extended not only to Judea but also to Samaria, Galilee, Idumaea, and Perea.  

During his reign, Herod is said to have kept 2,000 bodyguards, and he was forever paranoid about threats to his power. When he made the mistake of favoring Antony over Octavian in the War of Actium, he later had to convince the new Emperor Augustus (formerly Octavian) of his loyalty.  

With time Herod became known for assassinating his political opponents, and his massacre of the Holy Innocents is chronicled in the Gospel of Matthew.  

In 29 BC, Herod ordered the execution of his second wife, Mariamne I, whom he suspected of plotting against him despite his fondness for her. Herod had drowned Mariamne’s brother in a swimming pool a few years earlier, and he would go on to execute two of the sons that Mariamne bore him.

Just a few days before his death, Herod also executed Antipater II, his firstborn son from his first wife, who would have been the heir to the throne.  

It is said that Herod’s violent ways once led the Emperor Augustus to quip, “It is better to be Herod’s pig than son”—an allusion to the fact that Jews don’t eat pork.  

The ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus reports that Herod the Great died following an agonizing illness that modern physicians speculate may have been chronic kidney disease accompanied by a painful rotting of the genital area known as Fournier’s gangrene.  

After Herod’s death, the Romans turned his kingdom into a tetrarchy ruled by three of his sons and his sister.

Salome I received a small array of coastal cities. Philip the Tetrarch received territories northeast of the Jordan River, including the region of Traconitis. Herod Antipas received Galilee and Perea.  

Herod Archelaus received the largest share, including Judea and Samaria. He held the title of ethnarch until he was removed by the Romans in AD 6, leading to the formation of Judaea as a province placed under direct Roman rule.  

The Roman prefect Pontius Pilate would later serve as the fifth governor of this province.

Herod Antipas

Herod Antipas was the son of Herod the Great and a woman named Malthace.

Although Antipas is sometimes referred to as a king, he was technically only ever a tetrarch operating under Roman supervision.

Antipas founded the city of Tiberias, named after the Roman Emperor Tiberius, to serve as his center of government. The city is located on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, just three miles south of Magdala.

Early in his reign Antipas married Phasaelis, but he later divorced her in order to marry his half-brother’s wife, Herodias.  

Not only were Antipas and Herodias guilty of adultery, they were also related by blood: 

Thus Antipas was Herod the Great’s son, while Herodias was Herod the Great’s granddaughter.  

But because Herod the Great had multiple wives, Antipas’s relationship to Herodias was that of a paternal uncle (her father was Antipas’s half-brother).  

Famously, St. John the Baptist condemned Antipas and Herodias’s union on the basis of the Mosaic law, which forbade a man from having relations with his brother’s wife while the brother was still alive (see Lev 18:16; 20:21).

Offended by John’s rebuke, Herodias sought to silence him.

According to the Gospels, during Herod’s birthday feast, her daughter danced before the guests, and Antipas promised to grant whatever she requested. At her mother’s urging, the girl asked for John the Baptist’s head on a platter (see Mark 6:17–28; Matthew 14:3–11).  

Both Matthew and Mark’s Gospels record how Antipas later heard about Jesus and His miracles, leading him to believe that this was a reincarnation of John whom he had killed: “This is John the Baptist, he has been raised from the dead; that is why these powers are at work in him” (Matt 14:2; cf. Mark 6:16).

When the time came for Christ’s own trial and death, Luke’s Gospel tells us that Jesus was briefly brought before Antipas.

Although Antipas was mainly based in Tiberias, he was in Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover (see Luke 23:7). Despite Antipas’s desire to see some great miracle performed, however, Jesus refused to speak a single word to Him: “So he questioned him at some length; but he made no answer” (Luke 23:9).  

Christ’s refusal to answer Antipas’s questions has sometimes been interpreted as an act of judgment. Since Antipas had ordered the murder of the prophet John, now he was met with silence when the Son of God stood before him.  

Upon realizing that Jesus wouldn’t be performing any magic tricks for him, “Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him; then, arraying him in gorgeous apparel, he sent him back to Pilate” (Luke 23:11).

In AD 39, Antipas had a falling out with his nephew, Herod Agrippa, who appears in the New Testament in Acts 12.

Agrippa was a grandson of Herod the Great and the full brother of Herodias. When Agrippa accused Antipas of having been involved in a conspiracy to overthrow Roman rule, the emperor Caligula sided with Agrippa and exiled Antipas to Gaul.

Antipas appears to have died in exile together with Herodias, and his former territories were handed over to Agrippa.

Pontius Pilate

As far as we know, Pontius Pilate never interacted with John the Baptist directly.

But Pilate was governor of the Roman province of Judaea at the time of John’s death, and he had a professional relationship with Herod Antipas, who ordered John’s execution.  

Pilate was also responsible for the appointment of Caiaphas the high priest, who, together with Pilate, was instrumental in Jesus’s trial and death.

Little is known about Pilate’s background, but he served as governor from roughly AD 26 to 36 during the reign of Emperor Tiberius. In this role he acted as a subordinate to the legate of Syria, and his area of jurisdiction included Jerusalem and the surrounding area, as well as Samaria and Idumaea.

Pilate’s territories were thus significantly smaller than those that had belonged to Herod the Great, and they did not extend to Galilee. This explains why Pilate sent Jesus to Herod Antipas for questioning when he realized that Jesus was a Galilean (see Luke 23:6–7).

Like Antipas, Pilate was in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’s death on account of the Passover festival.

His headquarters was the Mediterranean city of Caesarea Maritima, which held a force of perhaps 5,000–6,000 Roman auxiliary soldiers. (The nearest legion was stationed in nearby Syria.) During major festivals, however, the population of Jerusalem could quadruple in size, and so it was normal practice for Pilate to travel there with additional troops to strengthen the garrison in the Antonia Fortress, which overlooked the Jerusalem Temple.

Luke’s Gospel tells us that Pilate and Herod Antipas bonded over their shared mistreatment of Jesus: “And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day, for before this they had been at enmity with each other” (Luke 23:12).

Interestingly, we are told that the trial of Jesus caused Pilate to be “afraid” (John 19:8), which is reminiscent of how Antipas “feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man” (Mark 6:20).

Tragically, however, neither Pilate nor Antipas listened to the voice of their conscience, and both tyrants consented to sentencing an innocent man to death.  

In Matthew’s Gospel, we find a remarkable story—composed of a single verse—describing the agitation that Pilate’s wife felt over the trial of Jesus:

Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much over him today in a dream. (Matt 27:19)

In the Eastern churches Pilate’s wife is named as Claudia Procula and venerated as a saint, implying that she converted to Christianity at a later date. One tradition holds that in her dream she heard the billions of Christians down the centuries reciting her husband’s name in the Nicene Creed: “. . . He was crucified under Pontius Pilate.”  

From what we know of Pilate’s political career, he could at times be a violent and heavy-handed ruler. On several occasions this led to serious social unrest, which helps explain his anxious desire to placate the Jews during Jesus’s trial.

Josephus reports that Pilate was finally removed as governor around AD 36 after he ordered the slaughter of a group of Samaritans who had formed a new religious sect.

One tentative tradition, recorded by the Church historian Eusebius, holds that Pilate later committed suicide after being recalled to Rome in disgrace. 

Further reading:

Herod and Pilate—on Trial

The Most Underrated Saint

Why is John the Baptist Such a Big Deal?

Fr. Sean Davidson, Prophet of Fire: The Witness of St. John the Baptist (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2026)