About 3 weeks ago, I posted something I later found out was incorrect and thought I would correct it here and add some info about several early Church writers and what they said about the rapture.

Hoax!  - Something Irenaeus DID NOT SAY!

Irenaeus never said anything about the rapture.    I looked up a quote attributed to him and I posted this.... 

"Et propterea cum in fine repente hinc Ecclesia assumetur = "And therefore, when the end is suddenly here, the Church will be taken away"

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of taking this from an article instead of directly from the source of what Irenaeus wrote himself.  I later found out that Irenaeus did not say this.  This statement was made by Wilhelm Bornemann who wrote a commentary on Irenaeus in 1891, some 1700 years or so after Irenaeus died.  Someone confused Bornemann commentary on Irenaeus with Irenaeus , but Irenaeus never said this himself.  I was fooled by this once, but I recently went back to the Irenaeus source text and found it missing.  After I found it missing, I went looking for where it came from. 

Shepherd of Hermes

"I come near it, and, huge monster as it was, it stretcheth itself on the ground, and merely put forth its tongue, and stirred not at all until I had passed by it.....Thou hast escaped a great tribulation because thou hast believed and at the sight of such a huge beast hast not doubted. "

The man choose to believe the beast would not attack him, and it did not.  Of course, we know that in the end times, the beast of Revelation WILL choose to attack the Church, so whether this story REALLY applies to the end times or not is doubtful.  Many people do apply it to the end times and the beast of Revelation, and there are some parallels. But if it is applied, it would suggest that if I have enough faith, the Best of Rev 13 won't attack me.  So here's an interesting thought. Go back and read the whole context of what Hermas said and see if you think thid is applying to the tribulation period, or if he was saying something else. If you think it applies, do you agree with Hermas that faith will keep you from being persecuted and prevent you from facing a martyr's death?

Shalom,

Joe