Early Fathers beleived in pre-trib rapture?

[Phantom1539]

Check out this quote:

*“All the saints and elect of God are gathered together before the tribulation, which is to come, and are taken to the Lord, in order that they may not see at any time the confusion which overwhelms the world because of our sins.” *

-Pseudo-Ephraem (c. 374-627)

I’ve seen websites which claim other refgerences to rapture in the father’s writings, but can’t cite them. Still, this one is bad enough. Anybody got an explanation?

 

[Lazerlike42]

Phantom1539:

Check out this quote:

*“All the saints and elect of God are gathered together before the tribulation, which is to come, and are taken to the Lord, in order that they may not see at any time the confusion which overwhelms the world because of our sins.” *

-Pseudo-Ephraem (c. 374-627)

I’ve seen websites which claim other refgerences to rapture in the father’s writings, but can’t cite them. Still, this one is bad enough. Anybody got an explanation?

The reason that the word Pseudo is put before Ephraem is because the writer of the “Sermon on the End of the World,” from which this quote comes, is claiming that he is writing in the name of Ephraem. To my understanding, there is little if any scholarly data to say that this man really was, and that Ephraem actually wrote this sermon or taught it’s ideas.

Also, in this very sermon, the writer makes it clear that he believes the Rapture is to begin within three and one half years. Obviously, this did not happen!

 

[Lazerlike42]

Also remember that a lot of early Christian writers believed that Jesus was not God, that there was no trinity, and a host of other incorrect things.

 

[Fidelis]

As has been pointed out many times in these forums, the fact that one or some Church Fathers (even the most esteemed ones like St. Augustine) wrote something, does not mean that it was ever the official teaching of the Church. The value of citing the Early Fathers is in showing that current Church doctrine and practice is not of recent origin.

As far as we can tell, the Church for most of it’s history has had no official teaching on this matter, probably because Christ plainly told us we can’t know anyway. The fact that it has often become an issue is more due to sensationalism and a love of controversy.

 

[Maccabees]

Lazerlike42:

The reason that the word Pseudo is put before Ephraem is because the writer of the “Sermon on the End of the World,” from which this quote comes, is claiming that he is writing in the name of Ephraem. To my understanding, there is little if any scholarly data to say that this man really was, and that Ephraem actually wrote this sermon or taught it’s ideas.

Also, in this very sermon, the writer makes it clear that he believes the Rapture is to begin within three and one half years. Obviously, this did not happen!

Agreed,
Got to be careful of those anti-catholic website first of all they use the years that Saint Ephraem actually lived but this document was found to be forgery likely hundreds of years later than when ST Ephraem lived. WE have writings from Psuedo Augustine and Psuedo Ignaitus are we suppose to attribute those to saints now? THese are psedo = false writings it is embarassingly bad scholarship to include these among the writings of the church fathers.

Also they are reading a lot into this little excerpt it can lead to a variety of interpretations that have nothing to do with the rapture much like their interpretation of Thessalonians and Revelation and Matthew there are many ways to loot at these passages beside the rapture doctrine they read into it.
THe point stands no authentic church father beleived in the rapture if this is all they got this just proves how desperate they are to get a real authentic church father to back them up.
Please people don’t take anti-catholic sites as the gospel truth when they misrepresent church history and the church fathers.

The real Saint Ephraem beleived that the church would undergo the tribulation but I am sure the website coveniently left out that fact didn’t they?

 

[adventistnomore]

I don;t believe this is a Catholic-friendly web page, but worth reading:

velocity.net/~edju/Pretrib1.htm

 

[Maccabees]

adventistnomore:

I don;t believe this is a Catholic-friendly web page, but worth reading:

velocity.net/~edju/Pretrib1.htm

The site while not catholic friendly does have some valid points one of which supports what I said about Psuedo Ephraem.
Basically protestants who use the quotation know its a lie in who it attributed to and the date and ultimately its interpretation, but they keep using it anyway.

The quotation Jeffrey referred to is from a document called “Pseudo-Ephraem.” The prefix “pseudo—” means “false” or “falsely ascribed to—.” Scholars doubt this document is genuinely from the hand of Ephraem of Syria, or that it was written in the fourth century. It was most likely written much later by an anonymous author, who falsely ascribed it to Ephraem the Syrian. So, when Jeffrey wrote “I believe Ephraem the Syrian’s A.D. 373 manuscript, On the Last Times, the Antichrist and the End of the World…”, he has already mis-represented his evidence, and demonstrated the same kind of “spin” that is evident in his other claims. This sermon was neither written by Ephraem the Syrian nor was it written in A.D. 373! And Jeffrey knows this! Ephraem’s genuine writings, contained in the Post-Nicene Fathers collection, display no hint of pre-tribulationism. Here is the allegedly pre-trib statement that Jeffrey provides from Pseudo-Ephraem (see above quote)."

 

[Zooey]

There are alot of different opinions on this subject. I would be very much surprised to find that it was any different for the ECFs than for any of the rest of us…
As has been said, Jesus told us that no one knows the “day nor the hour”.People are entitled to their own opinions,** but** it drives me crazy is when somebody decides that he knows the time to the minute, & that all the rest of us are in big trouble if we don’t happen to agree with him!
I repeat: If Jesus says, “no one knows”, that means that ***no one knows. ***
The problem with some of these :whacky: self proclaimed “experts” is that they pick & choose from anybody & everybody’s writings to find something that suits them.