The pretribulation rapture — believers secretly caught up to meet Christ before a period of great tribulation — is not attested in early Christian literature and appears to be a theological development of John Nelson Darby in the 1830s. The early Church expected believers to endure tribulation and await the visible, public return of Christ: there is no concept of a prior secret catching away. Passages like 1 Thessalonians 4:17 were interpreted by the Fathers as describing the public Parousia — the meeting in the air being like subjects going out to welcome a returning king into their city.
Interprets the "meeting in the air" as the public Parousia, with the faithful going out to escort Christ back to earth — the same image used when an emperor entered a city. No mention of a pretribulational or secret event.
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