Matthew 14:5

He feared the multitude. — St. Mark, whose narrative is here much the fullest of the three, adds that Herod himself “feared John,” knowing “him to be a just man and a holy,” and was much perplexed — this, rather than “did many things” is the true reading — and heard him gladly (Mark 6:20). There was yet a struggle of conscience against passion in the weak and wicked tetrarch, as there was in Ahab in his relations with Elijah. In Herodias, as in Jezebel, there was no halting between two opinions, and she, in the bitterness of her hate, thirsted for the blood of the prophet who had dared to rebuke her guilt.