Tertullian — A Treatise on the Soul 58

All souls , therefore, are shut up within Hades: do you admit this? (It is true , whether) you say yes or no: moreover, there are already experienced there punishments and consolations; and there you have a poor man and a rich. And now, having postponed some stray questions for this part of my work, I will notice them in this suitable place, and then come to a close. Why, then, cannot you suppose that the soul undergoes punishment and consolation in Hades in the interval, while it awaits its alternative of judgment, in a certain anticipation either of gloom or of glory ?

You reply: Because in the judgment of God its matter ought to be sure and safe, nor should there be any inkling beforehand of the award of His sentence; and also because (the soul ) ought to be covered first by its vestment of the restored flesh, which, as the partner of its actions, should be also a sharer in its recompense. What, then, is to take place in that interval? Shall we sleep? But souls do not sleep even when men are alive: it is indeed the business of bodies to sleep, to which also belongs death itself, no less than its mirror and counterfeit sleep. Or will you have it, that nothing is there done whither the whole human race is attracted, and whither all man's expectation is postponed for safe keeping? Do you think this state is a foretaste of judgment, or its actual commencement?

A premature encroachment on it, or the first course in its full ministration? Now really, would it not be the highest possible injustice , even in Hades, if all were to be still well with the guilty even there, and not well with the righteous even yet? What, would you have hope be still more confused after death? Would you have it mock us still more with uncertain expectation? Or shall it now become a review of past life, and an arranging of judgment, with the inevitable feeling of a trembling fear ? But, again, must the soul always tarry for the body, in order to experience sorrow or joy ? Is it not sufficient, even of itself, to suffer both one and the other of these sensations? How often, without any pain to the body, is the soul alone tortured by ill-temper, and anger , and fatigue, and very often unconsciously, even to itself?

How often, too, on the other hand, amidst bodily suffering, does the soul seek out for itself some furtive joy , and withdraw for the moment from the body's importunate society? I am mistaken if the soul is not in the habit, indeed, solitary and alone, of rejoicing and glorifying over the very tortures of the body. Look for instance, at the soul of Mutius Scævola as he melts his right hand over the fire; look also at Zeno's, as the torments of Dionysius pass over it. The bites of wild beasts are a glory to young heroes, as on Cyrus were the scars of the bear. Full well, then, does the soul even in Hades know how to joy and to sorrow even without the body; since when in the flesh it feels pain when it likes, though the body is unhurt; and when it likes it feels joy though the body is in pain.