So far I've discussed how Christian thought on the Rapture varied by TIME, but it is also important to consider how it varied by LANGUAGE and REGION, which tend to coincide. Most of what we have preserved today from early times is from the Roman Empire or regions close to it. Many other regions of the world were not as literate or we simply don't have it available to judge. The 3 most dominant languages of that region were;
- LATIN - spoken widely in Western Europe
- GREEK - spoken widely in Southwestern Europe
- ARAMAIC / SYRIAC - spoken widely in Mid East rise of Arabic in Mohammed's era.
- wide variety of regional languages
It is interesting to note that EVERY PRE-TRIB RAPTURE writing from the earliest to the Protestant Reformation ORIGINATED IN LATIN SPEAKING REGIONS. Let me analyze these by region.
ARAMAIC / SYRIAC
Most Aramaic writers through the years are similar to the Ante-Nicean period for other regions, saying little that would hint at the timing of the rapture. Ephrem the Syrian (not the Latin Psueo-Ephrem) was one of the few who made comments that could be interpretted either way, and he did put forth a description incompatible with the pre-trib rapture by saying;
The elect will flee from his presence to the peaks of mountains and hills...People will flee to cemeteries and hide themselves among the dead, pronouncing the good fortune of the deceased who had avoided the calamity: ‘Blessed are you for you were borne away (to the grave) and hence you escaped from the afflictions! But as for us, woe is us! For when we die, vultures will serve as escort for us!’
(See http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/may2015/jovial510-3.htm for more detail)Here he says one must die to avoid the tribulation period. That of course is incompatible with a pre-trib timing. But most other Aramaic writers said little that could be interpreted one way or another.
The Spiritualization of Revelation into the Preterist or Yoachim theories did not affect the Aramaic / Syriac speaking Mid-east to the same level as Europe. Perhaps one reason for this is that the Syriac speakers had rejected the book of Revelation, so there was nothing to spiritualize, and they simply read the End Times accounts in the Gospels and letters literally. In fact the Syrian speakers sort of raise an argument against Preterism and Yoachimism; throw out Revelation and you don't have a basis for arguing that the False Messiah has already arrived!
As an example of how Christian thought developed over time without Revelation, here is a comment from Ishodad of Merv,
"the error of Antichrist shall reign for a period of three years, according to the time from [our Lord's] Baptism to his Passion. When Elia will come for the revelation of our Lord, it is not known how long it will be ; some say it will be forty days ; the words being mixed with each other, the words that were spoken about the desolation and about the end" (Ishodad, 850 AD, in The Commentaries of Ishodad, commenting on Matthew 24)
Note here that Revelation is clear the False Messiah will reign for 3.5 years, but since Ishodad does not accept Revelation as Scripture, he draws an analogy to Yeshua and says that because the real Messiah ministered for 3 years, so would the False one.
Another place where I wonder where some very definite timing comes from is the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, which says,
"this the king of the Romans will go down and live in Jerusalem for seven and half-seven times, i.e., years. When the ten and a half years are completed the Son of Perdition will appear. He will be born in Chorazaim, nourished in Bethsaida, and reign in Capharnaum." (Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, 7th century AD)
So overall, he sees a 21 year period, or three 7 year periods.
Opinions on timing varied quite a bit among Aramaic speakers, but at least we seen futurism or Pre-Millenialism as the norm in the Aramaic speaking East even in the post Nicean period.
GREEK
Most Greek writers simple avoided describing anything about the timing of the rapture. No pre-trib statements, nothing that would disprove the pre-trib argument. Just dead silence on the possibility that a rapture could occur before the tribulation.
LATIN
Nearly everything said, either in favor of a pre-trib statement, or for which a pre-trib timing is one of multiple possible ways to interpret what was written, comes from the Latin west.
Earlier I talked about how there were two versions of Ezra that read....
Version 1
Version 2
"behold, the days shall come, that they which dwell upon earth shall be
taken in great measure (אמה),
and the way of truth shall be hidden,
and the land shall be barren of faith"behold, the days shall come, that they which dwell upon earth shall be
seized with great terror (אימה)..."which is a split that obviously came from 2 different interpretations of a Hebrew text from which it was translated.
Version 1 was widely circulated in the Latin West. A pre-trib rapture would be one way to explain what was meant, but not the only way, since it does not address
- who is taken and
- where they are taken and
- who does the taking and
- how.
When the Latin psuedo-Ephrem (dated to 6th or 7th century AD) said all the saints would be "taken to the Lord", he was using the "taken" language of Ezra. Was this because he read Ezra and considered it Scripture? Maybe. He puts His interpretation of who into the scenario, but still doesn't answer how. A pre-trib rapture is one explanation. Death is another.
Prior to Dolcino (13th century AD), these are the only known writings that COULD be interpreted as pre-trib, but aren't clear enough to be considered PROOF. Dolcino is clear enough to be considered PROOF. He lived in Northern Italy and Southern France, a region largely influenced by the Latin of the past, and in his time, Latin was still the language of scholars and his theory was recorded in Latin.
Joseph Mede's letter to Sam Meddus (1629) was written in Latin and is the next writing in time sequence that clearly discusses the possibility of a pre-trib rapture, along with the possibility of other timings (post-trib and post-Millenium). Morgan Edwards (1742) is the next most recent writer to talk about a pre-trib rapture. He wrote in English, so he was probably the first non-Latin writer to discuss the issue that we have record of. Prior to Darby (1830s), we have no record of the idea in a language other than Latin or English.
So this introduces another question. If all pre-Morgan (1742) sources to the pre-trib rapture are in Latin, is it a Catholic idea? Probably not at the Vatican level, but someone could draw that conclusion.
The POST-TRIB CONCLUSION: Someone might conclude that it all started with a misunderstanding of a bad translation of Ezra. One version of Ezra said "many would be taken", the Latin Psuedo Ephrem concluded from it that Christians would be taken to the Lord, and Dolcino concluded from Ephrem this meant a pre trib rapture, which Mede was open minded enough to consider possible and spread to not only Latin but also English sources since his work was also translated into English.
The PRE-TRIB CONCLUSION: There's several explanations for this one;
- that the Greek Orthodox and Church of the East and Eastern Orthodox branches did a better job of censoring out and refusing to preserve writings that were pre-trib than the Catholic West.
- the Catholic West was simply more tolerant and more open minded to the possibility.
- That censorship was everywhere, but the Catholic West had a different interpretation of Ezra, Latin Psuedo-Ephrem, and preserved Dolcino as an example of an opposing cult philosophy.
One of the reasons that the Latin word "Rapture" has worked its way into Church terminology when almost all theological words are either Hebrew or Greek based is because of the fact that almost everyone who discussed the topic wrote about it in Latin.
OTHERS
There are other languages that early christian writings have been preserved in. I don't know of any that comment on the rapture though. If anyone knows of some, let me know.
Shalom,
Joe