The Early Church and the Afterlife

The resurrection of the dead was, as Tertullian says, ‘the chief article of the whole Christian faith’ ( De resurrectione 39.3) and one of those beliefs which most distinguished Christian thought from much other contemporary thinking. This book looks at the way in which post-death existence is represented in the work of the early Church Fathers - notably Athenagoras, Tertullian, and Origen - and the Letter to Rheginos , and how these representations compare with its treatment both in Scripture a