Eschatological Anthropology

Abstract

This chapter explores selfhood in the Commedia. Focusing on the concept of the aerial body that the separated soul creates in the afterlife and that continues to express sensitive faculties, it argues that this concept is paradoxical. On the one hand it can be taken as the symbol of the separated soul’s full experience in the eschatological time between physical death and the final resurrection of the flesh. This is most interesting in Purgatory, where physical pain is productive and transformative. On the other hand, the concept of the aerial body also indicates that an even fuller experience will only be possible with the final, fleshly reconstitution of the person. This applies not only to Hell but also to Heaven, where the blessed, who have learnt to renounce their identity and merge with God, nonetheless also long for a corporeal materiality that carries their memory and past desires.