Mora resurrectionis. L’escatologia di Tertulliano: corporeismo e Nuova Profezia

This study examines the main passages of Tertullian dedicated to the description of life after death. In his early writings (Apologeticum, De testimonio animae) Tertullian presents the pagans with a simplified scheme based on the binary opposition gehenna/paradisus. In the subsequent production (De anima and De resurrectione), the description of the otherworldly destiny of the human soul becomes more complex: here the particular doctrine is affirmed according to which only the souls of martyrs have immediate access to paradise. All the others are destined for inferi, in the double location of the infernal prison (for the damned or for souls in need of expiation) or Abraham’s bosom (for those, probably, who are free from sin). The resurrection staggered over the millennium will give the souls in need the time necessary to atone for their sins. Tertullian’s representation of the otherworldly world is not simply reduced to that of the biblical text nor of its main doctrinal model, that is, Irenaeus. These developments compared to previous models could have been conditioned by Montanism, or by the particular Montanism with which the Carthaginian came into contact in Africa, but the hypothesis remains awaiting confirmation from the texts.