André Costa

André Costa

  • Joined: 30 de January de 2025
  • Articles: 218

Valentinianism and the Internal Crisis of Christianity in the Second Century

When one speaks of the great heresies of the early Christian centuries, one often imagines marginal groups, enclosed in obscure circles and removed from the ordinary life of the communities. The case of Valentinianism breaks this pattern. Between the second and third centuries, the system developed by Valentinus — one of the most sophisticated Gnostic masters — infiltrated the very heart of the Church, attracted cultivated elites, produced literature of the highest calibre, and almost became, in certain places, a viable internal alternative to nascent Christianity.

Les Misérables: a work that exposes Jansenist rigorism

The France in which Victor Hugo writes Les Misérables is a nation still marked by an old spiritual wound: Jansenist rigorism. Although Jansenism had been officially condemned and the celebrated Abbey of Port-Royal destroyed in the seventeenth century by order of Louis XIV, its ideas and its moral atmosphere continued to permeate French culture for a long time.

The Theatre of Salvation and the Tragic Structure of the Rich Young Man between Aristotle, Campbell, and Stanislavski

To begin this essay, I needed to draw on a few concepts and authors, attempting to bring this context closer to the human drama. Thus, my aim here is not to produce a theological essay but, as a novelist, to assess the text of the Gospel of Matthew 19 and from there try to approach the drama suffered by the rich young man upon receiving Christ’s words.

Between the Invisible and the Concrete: The Incarnation and the Pedagogy of the Senses in the Light of Aristotelian Metaphysics

The concrete gestures of Christ—touching, breathing, anointing, mixing clay, washing and blessing—are not mere pious stagings. They reveal a profound theology rooted in the very structure of reality and in the history of salvation. In God made man, invisible grace is communicated by visible means, and the sensible world becomes a pathway to the divine.

The Eucharist as the Source of the Christian’s Conversion and Penitential Life

No. 1436 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “daily conversion and penance find their source and nourishment in the Eucharist.” This statement reveals the intimate bond between two sacraments which, although distinct, converge upon the same reality: the reconciliation of man with God and his perseverance on the path to holiness. Penance is the continual return of the heart to the Father; the Eucharist is the food that sustains this return.

Rhetoric, the Sophists, and the Birth of Dialectic

In Ancient Greece, speech was both a tool of power and an instrument for the pursuit of truth. The fifth century BC, known as the “Age of Pericles”, marked the flourishing of Athenian democracy. In this context, the word logos assumed a central role in public life. It was through the force of speech that citizens persuaded, deliberated, defended causes, and rose politically.