[pt] O objetivo deste trabalho é evidenciar as interpretações teológicas mais expressivas sobre a Descida de Cristo à mansão dos mortos (vitória, pregação e solidariedade). Com os principais elementos contidos na reflexão teológica deste artigo de fé, tentaremos apresentar a descida de Cristo aos infernos como um modelo para a atuação e práxis libertadora da Igreja, mostrando como um antigo artigo de fé pode ser traduzido, de modo a fazer sentido para o fiel do séc. XXI. Assim sendo, se Cristo desceu aos infernos, Ele desce até a nossa realidade e aos nossos desafios sociais. Por analogia poderíamos dizer que aquilo que seria mansão dos mortos como Sheol, Hades, Inferos e Refaim, Cristo também teria descido a nossa condição humana, muitas vezes desprovida de esperança, invisível socialmente ou incapaz de agir por um sistema de opressão. A atuação da Igreja seria a mesma daquela promovida por Cristo quando pregou levando uma nova oportunidade de salvação na morada dos mortos ou quando o Cristo se fez solidário de corpo e alma para que toda a obra criada pudesse participar da graça de Deus. É a tentativa em dar uma práxis eclesial a partir das interpretações cristológicas e soteriológicas sobre o Descensus, fazendo com que a descida de Cristo à morada dos mortos se insira dentro do contexto latino-americano. / [en] This project objective is to highlight the most expressive theological interpretations about Christ s descent to the death manor (triumph, preaching and solidarity). With the main features contained in the theological reflection in this scientific faith article, we will try to present Christ s descent in to hell as a type for the Church liberator performance and praxis, showing like an old faith article can be translated in order to make sense to the believers from the XXI century. Therefore, if Christ descended in to hell he would descend until our realities and our social challenges. By the analogy, we could say that it would be the death manor such as Sheol, Hades, Hell and Rephaim, Christ would have descended to our human condition, often without hope, socially unseen or incapable to act because of an oppression system. The church performance would be the same as the one promoted by Christ. When he preached taking a new redemption opportunity to the deceased abode or when Christ was body and soul solidary for every accomplishments that could take part of God’s grace. It s an attempt to give an ecclesiastic praxis by the Christological and soteriological interpretations about the descensus, which Christ s descent to the deceased abode gets inserted into LatinAmerican context.

The purpose of the present dissertation is to study the elaborations of the initiation myth in contemporary Italian author Alessandro Baricco. The theoretical and methodological framework consists mainly of Mircea Eliade’s phenomenological theory of initiation. It is argued that the categories of space and time are interdepent in religious thought and should thus be studied as a unit, through the notion of the chronotope. The dissertation therefore proposes to introduce the concept of the chronotope of initiation as an operative tool, the intersection of the theories of Eliade and Mikhail Bakhtin, for the literary subgenre of the initiation novel. A hermeneutical analysis of the novels Oceano mare, Emmaus and Mr Gwyn demonstrates that the initiation myth is present in all three novels. The symbolism of death and rebirth is coherently enacted as a movement via the categories cosmos-chaos-cosmos, for which the author uses the symbolism of the earth to define cosmos (regularity and structure) and water symbolism for the regenerating chaos (dissolution and renewal). The different chapters of analysis accentuate the interaction of space and time within the different phases of the initiation pattern: the profane, the threshold, the sacred, the centre (the place where the actual ritual is enacted) and the return, which are all defined as chronotopes. The analysis shows that although the chronotope of initiation – the concept intending the fusion of the temporal event of ritual at the spatial centre – assumes different forms throughout the corpus, its function remains unmodified, with its purpose being the creation of ontological change. In its inherent structure, the chronotope of initiation unites antithetical spatial and temporal characteristics. Spatially it unites infinite and dissolving chaotic space with the constitutive envelope or sacred vertical centre, and temporally it brings together the ultimative ontological change at a fixed, historical moment with the eternal, sacred, time opened by ritual, representing the coincidentia oppositorum of the sacred. The analysis also shows that the so-called “portraits of the ineffable”, present in all three novels, reflect the same qualities. As immanent works of art, they function as thresholds into the infinite. From a chronological perspective, the dissertation shows a modification of the initiation pattern in Baricco’s writing: from the classical form in Oceano mare, via a more realistic application in Emmaus, to the most elaborate, meta-literary adaption in Mr Gwyn. Nevertheless, the use of the pattern and its thematic coherence reveals that Baricco consciously elaborates on the pattern to suit the contemporary context.