References to the Jewish Belief in Agrippa as the Messiah Prior to the Twentieth Century

• The Jews who came after him [Josephus], were willing to supply this defect. They have forged to us an Agrippa descended of Herod, whom the Romans, fay they, put to death a little before the destruction of Jerusalem; and they will have it, that this Agrippa, Christ by his title of king, is the Christ spoken of in Daniel . a fresh proof of their blindness! For besides that this Agrippa can neither be the righteous, nor the holy One, nor the end of the prophecies such as the Christ, whom Daniel pointed out in that place, must have been; besides that the murder of that Agrippa , in which the Jews had no hand, could not be the cause of their desolation, as the death of Daniel's Christ was to be; what the Jews say on this head is all a fable That Agrippa descended of Herod was ever on the side of the Romans: he was always well treated by their emperors, and reigned in a canton of Judea a long time after the taking of Jerusalem as Josephus and other contemporaries attest.

• Thus all that the Jews devise to elude the prophecies, serves but to confute them. They themselves do not rely upon so gross fictions, and their best defence consists in that law, which they enacted, to compute no more the days of the Messiah.[Bousset An Universal History p. 261]

• [R. Joseph Crooll, a Jewish teacher of Hebrew at Cambridge] first objects to the common rendering of the text 'the Messiah shall be cut off yet not for himself' [Dan 9:26] The Hebrew for the last section is ve-en lo and this our opponent, for very obvious purposes translates 'and not to him' instead of 'yet not for himself' that is, continues he, 'he shall have no successor.' He then proceeds to tell us who this Messiah is of whom it is thus pretended to be asserted that he shall have no successor; and our English readers will be somewhat surprised at finding, that, on the interpretation of the present writer, 'the messiah here alluded to, instead of being our Savior is Agrippa.'

• 'And this messiah,' says Mr. Crooll 'that was to be cut off was king Agrippa; and so it happened that in the last week, he and his son Monves were slain by the order of Titus.' [Kippis, Godwin The New Annual Register 1815 p. 371]

• For though Jews, in opposition to Christians, say that the Messiah mentioned in the 25th verse is Cyrus, and that the Messiah mentioned in the 26th verse means King Agrippa, it is clear that the Messiah spoken of in the 25th verse, is the same Messiah mentioned in the 26th Verse ; the connexion is not in the least broken, nor is there a second person mentioned before the latter part of the 26th verse, when the Roman Emperor is introduced, who is only called prince, and not MESSIAH or ANOINTED. Surely if the petty King Agrippa was worthy of the title anointed, because he was a king, the Emperor of Rome had as great a right to such an appellation. But they say, 'the king was the Lord's anointed,' as David says with regard to Saul, Sam i, 26, 29 for who can stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointed. The kings of the Jews were not more the anointed of the Lord after the Babylonish captivity, than the idolatrous kings were the anointed of the Lord, neither can the Messiah of the 25th verse be applied to Cyrus ... nor can the Jews to this day make the Messiah of the 26th verse — shall Messiah be cut off- — apply to King Agrippa, who is said to have been put to death by Vespasian, about four years before the destruction of the temple; for it is evident from the account given by their own historian, Josephus, that he lived many years after the destruction of Jerusalem [Classical Journal, 1822, On the True Age of Christ at the Crucifixion, and the Fulfillment of the Seventy Weeks of Daniel p. 170]

• As for the marked expression 'and not for himself' [Daniel 9:26 KJV] Mr. [David] Levi gives a very singular interpretation of it indeed. "Agrippa," fays he, " was put to death by Vespasian about four year* before the destruction of the temple: as was also his son: which is shewn by the words and not to him, ie there shall be no more of him: for since his death, there has been no more kingly power in the Jewish nation to this day' [Letters to the Jews by Joseph Priestly 1787 p. 66]

• Jewish writers would have Herod Agrippa intended by the Messiah that was to be cut off, who they say was the last king of the Jews [A collection of sermons and tracts Volume 3 By John Gill 1778 p 338]

• the Jews applied it (i.e. 'the prince Dan 9:25) to Herod Agrippa, who was slain shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem [A homiletical commentary on the book of Daniel By Thomas Robinson 1882 p. 197]

• Your celebrated Rabbi [Abraham ben] Isaac [a sixteenth century Karaite] in his celebrated treatise entitled the Bulwark of the Faith, says, that the seventy weeks of Daniel are a period of four hundred and ninety years, to be reckoned from the worrd of God to Jeremiah concerning the return from the Babylonish Captivity, or from the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar to its destruction by Titus. He also says, that Messiah, the prince, in the former part of the prophecy means Cyrus, who is called the Messiah, or the anointed, by Isaiah; and that by the Messiah who is to " be cut off," in the latter part of the prophecy is meant the last king of the jews, or Agrippa the younger, who is said by a spurious Josephus (never quoted by any writer before the twelfth century) to have been killed by Vespasian before the taking of the city.[The Theological and Miscellaneous Works of Joseph Priestly Vol 20 1780 p. 242]

The fact that Karaites also shared this interpretation of Agrippa as the messiah of Daniel is quite significant as the official break between Rabbanites and Karaites occurred in the eighth century. Many scholars, including myself, date the origins of the Karaites back much further perhaps as far as the Sadducees. The fact that the Karaites maintained the same understanding of Agrippa as the messiah of Daniel makes absolutely certain that the tradition is very, very old undoubtedly dating back to the first century as I have suggested all along.

Irenaeus and the Antichrist 'Mark'

Harvey makes an interesting point in his critical edition of Irenaeus that never getsmuch attention in Patristic scholarship.  Irenaeus says that 'Mark' (Μάρκος) not only claimed to be the Christ but  Irenaeus thought that the 'little apocalypse' foretold his Satanic advent.

You know how scholars work.  They like to 'help' the Fathers along, sounding as reasonable as possible but we always have to remember - Photius of Constantinople says there were a lot of unsound ideas in Irenaeus's writings.

Imagine that.  A ninth century Byzantine scholar showing more objectivity in his reporting than his modern equivalents.

In any event, let's get to back to the 'little apocalypse.'  Harvey seems to think that Irenaeus is citing Matthew chapter 26.  But let's start by citing how canonical Mark presents Jesus's foretelling the events of the coming events in Jerusalem:

But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them. At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'Look, there he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect—if that were possible. So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time [Matt 13:20 - 23]

Matthew's text by contrast reads:

If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time. "So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. [Matt 24:22 - 25]

The idea that the advent of the heretic Mark is 'foretold' by the gospel has an interesting parallel in the Alexandrian tradition. Mark's 'little apocalypse' has what can only be described as a 'deeper layer' where it is actually ANNOUNCES what is called the 'second advent' of messiah at the same time as it now warns about the coming of the aforementioned 'Antichrist.'

This is a particularly strange way of arranging a narrative. It would be like warning about the dangers of cholesterol while praising Southern cooking. In each case it can be demonstrated that the 'warning' is actually inserted into Jesus's original announcement of the coming of the messiah (and thus clearly manifesting that Jesus WASN'T the Christ as the Muslims, Manichaeans, Marcionites and other traditions outside the Catholic tradition always held).

Let me show you what I mean.

If we look at Matthew's schizophrenic account of Jesus warning of the coming age we read:

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. "So when you see standing in the holy place 'the abomination that causes desolation,' spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath.  For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time.

"So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.

"Immediately after the distress of those days
'the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'

At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory.  And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. 

Now let's keep some perspective on these matters.  There is a clear and consistent understanding in Judaism that dread will accompany the appearance of the messiah.  This is not the 'problem' as I see it.  What seems so strange is the obvious insertion of  a 'false' revelation into the main body of what must have been Jesus's original announcement of the impending advent of the 'true' messiah.

Irenaeus here makes clear that there was a contemporary tradition identifying Mark as the 'false' messiah.  According to Irenaeus's interpretation again the 'true' messiah has also not arrived yet.  As such Jesus's proclamation is understood to unfold 'chronologically' - i.e. where the appearance of the 'false' messiah necessarily HAS TO PRECEDE Jesus's second coming.  Everyone accepts Irenaeus's understanding because we are all in a sense Irenaeus's spiritual descendants.  However it is not hard to see that THIS CANNOT BE what the gospel of the followers of Mark (i.e. the Alexandrian tradition) laid out.

All we have to do is look at an important section which now appears in Book Two of the Five Books Against All Heresies and see that the Marcosians - like Clement of Alexandria clearly understood the 'year of favor' [Isa 61.2] announced by Jesus [cf. Luke 4:19] to have already taken place.  The year of favor according to Clement and the other members of the Markan tradition was a year of 360 (plus 5) days, foretold since the time of Moses which followed the pattern of jubilees - i.e. periods of redemption represented by the year immediately followed a cycle of seven sabbatical years since the beginning of Creation.

Jesus came into the synagogue, according to the Marcosian understanding, to announce that his crucifixion would usher in this long awaited 'year of favor.'  It is for this reason that the text which describes Jesus's activity is called the gospel.  As I have noted before, Professor Ruairidh is the first person in history to provide an explanation grounded in the culture of the Jews and Samaritans which preceded Jesus's advent.  He notes that the Samaritan Arabic commentary on the Torah, on Leviticus XXV:9 explains the concept of the gospel in terms of the Jubilee with a slightly condensed translation:

The High Priest and the King acting together are to send heralds out on the Day of Atonement to go into all countries over the next six months blowing the shofar in every land and region [not just Canaan] with the announcement [bashâ’ir, plural of bashîrah] of the information of the approach of the Jubilee Year and the release of captives”. The Arabic bashîrah = the Hebrew bassorah. The person doing it is the mubashshir = Hebrew mevasser, or the bashîr. Notice carefully that the bashîrah is not the information, but the announcement of it. This is the connotation of the Greek euangelion.

This perfectly fits Irenaeus's fragmentary information about the sect of Mark that he demonizes in his work.  Irenaeus DELIBERATELY presents the Marcosian interest in kabbalah and their interest in the Jubilee as two separate concepts but they are clearly related.  Clement over and over again stresses that the Jubilee is represented by the eight (i.e. seven + one).  Eight is one better than the seven in the same way as the revelation of the gospel is superior to the revelation of the Torah which is based on the number seven.

The point then is that Irenaeus not only ATTACKS this Marcosian interpretation (which must be considered to be the original given its grounding in traditional Israelite concepts of the Jubilee and the manifestation of the messiah cf.11Q Melchizedek) but he goes on to present an absurdly loose interpretation of Isaiah and the second advent.  According to Irenaeus when Jesus went into that synagogue he WASN'T thinking about the Jubilee or any messianic concept that had been established since the time of Moses.  Instead he put forward that the 'year of favor' wasn't a year at all but the period of time between his crucifixion and establishment of the Imperially sanctioned Roman Catholic Church in the time of Irenaeus (one hundred and fifty years later!).

I don't want to get too distracted by this nonsense but the reader should start to see is that there is an uncanny parallel between Irenaeus's STUPID interpretation of Isa 61.2 and Jesus citation of the text in the synagogue AND the 'little apocalypse' which appears in the copies of the gospel he and his tradition sanctified as 'holy writ.'

The followers of Mark are already established to have argued that the 'year of favor' was a Jubilee which already took place.  Given their roots in tradition Judaism IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE to argue that the messiah DIDN'T appear in this 'year of favor' it is impossible to believe that their gospel presented the scenario that ONLY the false advent of the Antichrist had been fulfilled.  Indeed I can't help but see that if WE REMOVE all the business about the 'Antichrist' from the little apocalypse we end up with a scenario that actually 'fits' the original Marcosian gnosis.

For example if we repeat our methodology only now with the description in the existing canonical Mark we read after the announcement that "the gospel must first be preached to all nations" that:

When you see 'the abomination that causes desolation' standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the roof of his house go down or enter the house to take anything out. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that this will not take place in winter, because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now—and never to be equaled again. If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them. At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'Look, there he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect—if that were possible. So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.


But in those days, following that distress,
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.


At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens. 


The point is that ONCE WE REMOVE THE WARNING OF THE COMING OF THE ANTICHRIST - injected into the original text undoubtedly by zealous 'heresiologists' in the Catholic Church - does a gospel narrative which COULD HAVE BEEN used by the heresies associated with Mark manifest itself.

Let me express that another way.  The Catholic tradition only emerged AFTER the heresy of Mark had established itself as a dominant form of Christianity.  We have pointed out that Philo of Alexandria already witnesses the central mystic understanding of the tradition.  Irenaeus's chief task was nothing short of re-engineering Christianity AWAY from the doctrine that Jesus came to herald someone else as the messiah.  That 'someone else' clearly made himself known in the period which led up to the destruction of the Jewish temple EXACTLY AS THE ANTICHRIST WARNING now inserted into the text testifies albeit wholly negatively.

How do we know this?

It is as obvious and impossible to miss because BOTH THE CHRIST of the Alexandrian tradition AND THE ANTICHRIST of the Roman tradition are both named Mark.

For we cannot forget that the Alexandrian tradition as well as the rabbinic tradition all identify Marcus (i.e. 'Mark') Agrippa, the Jewish king who ultimately destroyed the Jewish temple as the messiah of Daniel.  I have pointed this out many times in my book and at this blog.  The amazing thing again is that Clement and Origen and the rest of the Alexandrian tradition - a tradition associated with a messiah named Mark [cf. Severus of Al'Ashmunein Homily on St. Mark] - understands that the messiah of Daniel was also named 'Mark' (i.e. Agrippa) and this revelation FITS PERFECTLY within the restored Marcosian gospel of Mark.

Again, it should be noted that THE EXACT SECTION which is used by Clement and Origen to prove that the messiah is Mark Agrippa is employed by Mark the evangelist to herald the coming of the messiah predicted by Jesus according to the Marcosians:

When you see 'the abomination that causes desolation' [Dan. 9:26] standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand ... at that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory [Dan. 7:13]  And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens. 

This isn't the place to develop an understanding of what kind of messiah Daniel was predicting but the answer is very simple - ALL EARLY CHRISTIAN COMMENTATORS AGREE THAT THIS ANOINTED IN DANIEL IS ONLY A TEMPORAL KING. (All early Christian commentators agree with the mainstream Jewish interpretation, that it is meant to refer to Marcus Agrippa). In the contemporary Jewish context, Anointed = Mashiach = Christos meant a new secular king descended from David.

Jesus is always made to reject the term Mashiach (Hebrew) or Meshicha (Aramaic) or “Christos” (Greek). All these words mean exactly the same thing, someone or something anointed. He rejected the term was because the PRIMARY CONNOTATION is “legitimate TEMPORAL or SECULAR king”. This is its meaning in Daniel IX: 25 and 26.

The point is that we have reached the core understanding of Mark's gospel. We will never know what Jesus ever really said or did. What we have instead is Mark's reconstruction of events and this in turn was borrowed (or stolen) by other redactors of the narrative.

Since Irenaeus already tells us that the followers of Mark the heretic understood Mark to be the messiah and it is inferred that Mark received a revelation like the one described in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 - how can we understand Irenaeus's 'Antichrist' reference as anything other than a Catholic attempt to distort the early Markan understanding that Jesus using Daniel to herald the coming of someone named Mark as the messiah?

Before we get too entangled in this question we should state that we ALREADY HAVE a firm identification of contemporary Jews and Christians explicitly identifying WHO DANIEL prophesied as his messiah:

(a) first, all the early Christian commentators agree that the figure in Daniel is Marcus Agrippa.

(b) The figure in Daniel is specifically a משיח נגיד so he is a King but not High Priest.

(c) At some stage a false line of interpretation of the original Gospel has focussed on making Jesus a Davidic King.

These days (c) seems to be the prevalent view. Notice the annoyance of Calvin and Luther over the traditional Jewish identification of the figure in Daniel. They were too preoccupied with blustering to see that the original unanimous Christian position is the same as the Jewish one.

The historical reality is then that someone named 'Mark' - Marcus Agrippa was considered the anointed one mentioned in Daniel. This understanding is especially pronounced in Alexandria where as Bill Adler:

Origen acknowledges that some interpreters of Daniel 9:26 identified the coming prince with 'Christ' (i.e. Jesus) ... [he says that] the figure instead should be identified either as Herod or as Agrippa (the latter he says on the authority of a 'Jewish history'). In either case it was with one of these foreign rulers that the oracle of Jacob was fulfilled. (p. 235)

What Adler fails to mention to his readers (the point is never lost in good critical commentaries on Daniel) is that elsewhere in his writings Origen makes it absolutely explicit that not only does he accept Agrippa as the messiah of Daniel but that Jesus was only the first meek manifestation of the Christ power - there would be a second advent where Christ would appear as an anointed king.

The point again is that WE HAVE TO BEGIN TO SEE THAT Irenaeus ISN'T JUST combating some 'stupid little heresy' associated with an imaginary boogeyman named 'Mark' - he is trying to destroy the original interpretation of the Mark's gospel by his authentic tradition in Alexandria. The addition of a supposed 'prophesy' about the coming of the Antichrist in the same era as Jews and Christians from Alexandria were identifying Mark as their predicted messiah CAN'T be accidental.

It is nothing short of DELIBERATE DISINFORMATION on the part of the Catholic tradition.