II. GALILEEANS, a Sect of the Jews, which sprung up in Judæa, some years after the birth of our Saviour. One Judas, a native of Gaulan, in upper Galilee, was the author of it, about the year of the world 4010, upon the occasion of Augustus’s appointing the people to be mustered; which order was executed by Quirinius, in the See Luke ii. 1. Acts v. 37. and the Comment upon Acts v. 37.tenth year of Jesus Christ, ten years after the death of Herod the Great, in the last year of Augustus, and after the banishment of Archelaüs. This numbering of the people was very different from that which was made at our Saviour’s birth.
Joseph. Antiq. l. 18. c. 2.Judas the Gaulanite, or Galileean, pretended, that the tax established by the Romans, and regulated by Quirinius, was a manifest instance of servitude, which all true Israelites ought to oppose with all their power. These discourses made an impression upon the people’s minds: many of them joined Judas, took arms, and began a kind of civil war, which, properly speaking, was not concluded till the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. The Disciples of Judas were called Galileeans, because Judas himself was of Upper Galilee, and his followers, for the most part, were of the same Province. They were likewise called Herodians, because the kingdom of Herod the Tetrarch included Galilee beyond Jordan, and the neighbouring places about Gaulan, Judas’s country. See our Dissertation concerning the Sects of the Jews, prefixed to St. Luke, and the article Herodians.
The Galileeans, according to Josephus, agreed in every thing with the Pharisees. The only thing which distinguished them, was, an excessive love of liberty; being strongly prejudiced with this principle, That God alone is the Head and Prince, whom we are to obey. In the Gospel we find them mentioned by the name of HerodiansMatth. xxi.16,17., who addressed themselves to our Lord, and asked him, if it were lawful or not to pay tribute to Cæsar. This was the great question, and principal object of their sect. When Jesus Christ appeared before Luk. xxiii. 2.Pilate, his accusers would have rendred him suspected of this heresy, saying, that they found him perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar.