SCS-84: HYBRID: The Afterlife of the Body

In Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead, the dead in the underworld are (generally, despite some clues to the contrary) represented as skeletons, as if after death their corpses had been sent straight down to Hades fully embodied, decaying over the centuries, until one cannot tell the difference between Nireus and Thersites. The image of the dead as skeletons is used to make satirical points about the fleeting nature of life's pleasures, especially beauty, youth, and strength.

The notion of bodily resurrection is one of the most distinctive doctrines of nascent and early Christianity, one which not only drew incredulity from opponents of the movement (particularly Platonist philosophers) but sometimes presented a stumbling- block to early Christians, particularly those with a Hellenic education.

A bilingual epitaph found in Rome from the second century CE proclaims: “Traveler, do not pass by my epitaph, but stop and listen, and then, when you have learned the truth, carry on. There is no boat in Hades, no ferryman Charon... All of us who have died and gone below are bones and ashes: there is nothing else. What I have told you is true. Now leave, traveler, so that you will not think that, although dead, I talk too much” (CIL 1.6298 = EG 646).