ABSTRACT
Tertullian, earliest among the North African church writers (lived ca. 160-240 ce), inhabited a world in which the dead were an intimately familiar, if not feared presence manifested in multiple contexts. All around him, on certain days of the year, he could watch as the streets of Carthage lled with people bound for the cemeteries to share a graveside meal with departed relatives and friends. Through the activities of sorcerers, the dead might be called up from Hades for various, often unsavory, purposes. As we have seen, Perpetua, an early Christian martyr from Carthage, writes of encountering her deceased brother in dreams.
