those who were engaged in more detailed speculations about eschatology. This text also
bears witness to the fact that some Christians in the fourteenth century were asking the
question of how God will protect His people from the persecution of Antichrist. And as
an answer, a translation of the saints to heaven, as the divine means by which God will do
that, seems to have been clearly articulated.
challenges us evangelicals to re-evaluate our history of the pretribulation rapture.
Especially in need of rethinking are those views which place the origin of the teaching,
or its initial recovery, within the last two hundred years. For this fourteenth-century text,
The History of Brother Dolcino, shows us that some Christians in the middle ages held a
view of the rapture that had basic elements of what we call today a pretribulation rapture.
These include a significant gap of time between the rapture of the saints and their
subsequent descent to earth, and the purpose of the rapture related to escaping end-time
tribulation. And on this basis, I submit my case for expanding the historical boundaries
of pretribulationism.
L.Bray Ministry, Inc., May 1982), 4-5; Bray, The Origin of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Teaching (PO Box
90129, Lakeland, FL 33804: John L. Bray Ministry, Inc., August 1982), 18-20; Bray, The Second Coming
and Related Events (PO Box 90129, Lakeland, FL 33804: John L. Bray Ministry, Inc., 1985), 18-24.
Back in the nineteenth century a critic of the Plymouth Brethren wrote that Darby's rapture teaching was
akin to that of a Jesuit named Pierre Lambert. See Thomas Croskery, Plymouth Brethrenism: A Refutation
of its Principles and Doctrines (London: William Mullan and Sons, 1879), viii. I am aware of no studies
investigating Lambert's rapture teaching. I am assuming he meant Pierre Lambert de la Motte (1624-1679)
in which case Henri de Frondeville, Pierre Lambert de la Motte, eveque de Beryte (Paris, 1925) may be
helpful. I was unable to locate a copy in the U.S. If he meant Pierre-Thomas Lambert (1751-1802) then
that author's Mémoires de famille (Paris, 1822, 1894), available in many libraries in the U.S., may prove
helpful. See Worldcat computer database. Or he may have had in mind Pierre Lambert (1480-1543) whose
Mémoires are published in Monumenta historiae patriae, Scriptores (Turin, 1840) I, 839-930. There are
several others by the name of Pierre Lambert who also may qualify. In addition there is a Franz Lambert
(1486-1530) who wrote a commentary In Apocalypsin (Marbourg, 1528), which is on microfiche at the
Center for Res Libr (Illinois).
62703.
Zondervan, 1988), 470-471; Gordon Strachen, The Pentecostal Theology of Edward Irving (Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, reprinted 1988); Arnold Dallimore, The Life of Edward Irving: The Forerunner of the
Charismatic Movement (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1983) especially chapter 12 entitled
"Accused of Heresy--`Christ's Sinful Flesh'", 77-82. An extensive treatment of the rapture teaching of
Irving and the Catholic Apostolic Church is Mark Patterson and Andrew Walker, "Our Unspeakable
Comfort: Irving, Albury, and the Origins of the Pretribulation Rapture" Fides et Historia 21:1
(Winter/Spring 1999):68-81, and reviewed by J. Lanier Burns in Bibliotheca Sacra 157 (July-Sept
200):363-365. Very helpful also for their theology of the rapture is Columba G. Flegg, `Gathered Under
Apostles': A Study of the Catholic Apostolic Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); and Rowland A.