On the Soul
Tertullian’s long treatise on the nature, origin and destiny of the human soul, written at Carthage. In chapter 55 he appeals to the vision of the martyr Perpetua, an early reference to her outside the account of her death.
Tertullian wrote De anima at Carthage in the early third century. Most of it is argument, against the opinions of the philosophers, about what the soul is, where it comes from and where it goes at death.
It is cited in this history for one sentence. Arguing that only martyrs go straight to paradise, Tertullian asks how it is that “the most heroic martyr Perpetua”, on the day of her passion, saw only her fellow martyrs there (55). He writes within a few years of her death and takes it for granted that his readers know the story told in the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity.
Cited in
- 7 March AD 203, estimated date