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What?? There are Christians alive in this period?? It seems the author isn't really picturing a world where all Christians got "rapture" prior to these events?

And the author is not picturing a world where all Christians did not get raptured...There will be new Christians during the Tribulation...The text is already in place where the church will be raptured prior to the work of the anti Christ...

Whether it was Ephraem or a pseudo Ephraem who authored this piece makes no difference ...The point is that the idea of a pre Tribulation rapture existed at the time...

While there is not much in the way of evidence that the church thru out history believed in a pre Tribulation rapture there is some evidence...Both before the Reformation and after prior to the 19th Century...There's enough evidence to prove that Darby was not the originator of the idea...

Whether it was Ephraem or a pseudo Ephraem who authored this piece makes no difference .

It seems to make a difference to those who somewhat gleefully try to add greater legitimacy by tying it to a canonized "saint" of the church.

The point is that the idea of a pre Tribulation rapture existed at the time...

That still depends on what the Pseudo-Ephraim meant by "escaping" the Tribulations to come. I've shown that the Syriac version describes this as escape via death:

And when the Accursed One comes And displays his mighty works and wonders, The nations will gather together and come As (if) they were going to see God. Groups and nations will join him, And every person will renounce their deity; Everyone will say of him to their fellow That they should acknowledge him, the Son of Destruction! Peoples will fall upon one another, Slaying each other with swords. The elect will flee from his presence To the peaks of mountains and hills, And there will be calamity on earth Unlike any that came before. Fear will fall upon all people And they will be overcome with terror. Children will renounce their father And follow after the Evil One; Priests will abandon their altars To serve as his heralds. 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!

You still lack a document that unambiguously teaches the notion of a bodily transportation of the living to Heaven prior to the Tribulation.

While there is not much in the way of evidence that the church thru out history believed in a pre Tribulation rapture there is some evidence.

If the question is phrased "is there any evidence?" a correct answer is "nearly none."

If the question is phrased "has this been believed throughout history?" the answer is "absolutely not." There is NO evidence of any continuity of thought or believe, even among the scant fragments that some purport to hold up.

But how can this be if the PTR is set forth in Scripture? We Catholics are told the Scriptures are "perspicacious;" that anyone coming to them in the spirit of truth will understand. How can it be that pretty much the entire professing christian world managed to look past 1 Thessalonians 4:17 and not understand its proper significance for 1800 years? And that epistle is likely the very first book written of what we now call the NT.

So it seems that either the Scriptures are not as claimed (so the Catholic case for a "Magisterium" -- a Divinely appointed teaching authority held by the church Jesus established -- is made stronger) or that there is something fundamentally flawed with the Pre-Trib Rapture theory as a matter of Bible interpretation.