Rapture Teaching Before Darby?

Was the rapture ever mentioned before John Darby or Irving or MacDonald? You bet.

The rapture before John Darby? Say it isn’t so!

Some years ago Grant Jeffrey excitedly contacted Dr. Thomas Ice and announced that he’d found a pre-Darby pre-conflagration rapture statement. The document was from someone dubbed Pseudo-Ephraem. PE presumably believed in a pre three-and-a-half-year rapture.

According to PE:

"Woe to those who desire to see the day of the Lord! For all the saints and elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins…."

Seems pretty straight forward doesn’t it? But it really messed with some peoples' heads.

I recall a few non-pretribulationists working themselves up into a lather over it. Bloggers scrambled to spiritualize PE’s words into the “Catholic language of his day.” Robert Gundry quickly wrote an article asserting why PE couldn’t have meant what he plainly wrote. In turn, Dr. Ice responded to Gundry.

Why was it so important to debunk PE? Prewrathers and posttribbers didn’t like the fact that someone prior to Darby incorporated the Day of the Lord into the final three-and-a-half years of tribulation, and kept the church out of it...keep reading

I've already had one individual hound me on Pseudo Ephraim. Not only did he miss the point but he confirmed the essential premise of the article!

Pseudo-Ephraem

In between Olivet Discourse instalments, I thought I’d post a few links on the subject of Pseudo-Ephraem. I often come across a website or blog that cites several early Church fathers or the Didache to point out that pretribulationism wasn’t taught by the early Church. I always thought that the battle-field for these topics was Scripture and not the aggregate of people’s beliefs. But perhaps where Scripture fails to prove one’s point one does one’s best elsewhere.

If recency really is a mitigating factor, some of the cherished beliefs of most other popular systems can also be considered questionable.

The long and the short of it is that pretribbers actually found a document by a so-called Pseudo-Ephraem that seemed to hold to a pre Great Tribulation (pre latter half of the week) rapture. He wasn’t pre-trib in the sense that pretribbers are today - he was more mid-trib. But the significant thing was that this man purportedly believed that the Church did not experience the Antichrist.

The document can be read HERE and HERE

Of particular interest is the following statement:

"Woe to those who desire to see the day of the Lord!" For all the saints and elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins….”

Sounds pretty straight forward, doesn’t it? Well, I think so. Here’s one ancient guy out of many who agrees in principle with pre-trib. Thomas Ice wrote an article on this:

The Rapture in Pseudo-Ephraem

At first Robert Gunrdy (on a proviso) accepted Pseudo-Ephraem could be a genuine example of an early pre-trib (GT) view. But then he proceeded to interpose his objections. Whatever the source of his grievances, Thomas Ice answers him:

AN ANSWER TO ROBERT GUNDRY

I note that there were at least two links at non pre-trib websites that claimed to refute that Pseudo-Ephraem actually believed a pre-trib rapture, but both have gone into oblivion now. There may be others around that I'm not aware of. I suggest people just read the thing and decide for themselves what PE actually wrote. Personally I’m somewhat surprised at what lengths some will go to debunk PE after reading the plain sense of his writing.

What about early Church eschatology? What is its history and how systematic and refined was the eschatology of the early Church fathers anyway? Here’s an article by James F. Stitzinger that addresses some of these issues:

THE RAPTURE IN TWENTY CENTURIES
OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION