ABSTRACT
Tertullian mentions a treatise that he had written, De Paradiso, in which he says that he had proved “omnem animam apud inferos sequestrari in diem Domini.” He carefully distinguishes between Paradise and Inferi, holding that the martyrs, and they alone, go direct to Paradise. The word used in the Latin of the Article is Inferi, which is also used in the Athanasian Creed, and in most of the later copies of the Apostles’ Creed. The older ones usually have Inferna, a few the singular Infernum. Both the Greek and Latin terms, Hades and Inferi, are entirely free from the associations which have unfortunately grown up round our English word Hell, owing to the unfortunate accident that it has been adopted as the translation for Gehenna as well as Hades, and thus denotes definitely the place of torments, as well as the intermediate state.
