Subscribe Sign In
Tuesday 15th April 2025
Oriens Journal Logo

Ancient Truths in New Light

EXTRA

Let's get to 1,000 subscribers
Current Subscribers: 155
11:49 AM Sydney, Australia

Ancient Truths in New Light

Picture of Father Matthew Solomon

Father Matthew Solomon

Fr Matthew Solomon is a priest incardinated in the diocese of Rome and currently resides in Sydney Australia, where he is collaborating with the Oriens Institute. APer completing his studies on Rome, Fr Solomon was ordained in 2001 by Pope St. Paul II at St. Peter’s Basilica.

He has worked on Rome as a curate in several parishes and was university chaplain to the Sacred Heart University in Rome for a number of years. He is the author of the Solomon Doctrine, which is his exposition of the ills of Western Civilisation and how the Catholic Church can begin to remedy these issues by plumbing the depths of Her Tradition.

Lesson V: Rome and the Heretics

The Christian life is a life of grace. But that life of grace in the 1st century AD was still yet to be manifest to the first followers of Christ. They knew they had to be like Him- but what would that look like when they had no examples to follow? The Church had to navigate between two extremes- of re-creating an alternative system of laws to the Jewish system that it had abandoned; and the other extreme of just leaving it up to personal whim and inspiration. The Apostolic Church had to resist both the Judaisers and the Gnostics, for both wanted to pull Christianity in two different directions, either of which would have destroyed the early Church.

A Conclave in the Offing

Now that Pope Francis’s health seems to be improving, I am more confident in publishing this particular article. It can feel unbecoming to write about what happens after someone dies, before that someone is dead. It feels a bit like trying to get a quick peak at the will before the person has breathed his last. Yet the wheels of the Church, though they grind slowly, they do grind. The ancient and solemn custom of electing a new pope will begin the moment the Pope has breathed his last. This article however is not about that.

Lesson IV: Scripture and Tradition

In this month’s article, we answer the last of our three original questions: how did the Church come to distinguish Her scriptures form other non-canonical Christian writings? Thus far, we have seen that the absence of express instructions from the Lord regarding Sacred Scripture, although seemingly a limit, is actually part of the Church’s intellectual and moral formation. The Church must receive what She is to hand on. And like all good mothers- she must exercise the virtues that she requires Her children to practice. Tradition demands that both the intellect be enlightened and the will quickened.

A Practical Lenten Primer

Lent is almost upon us. And so, in order to avoid the stampede towards the choice of an unsatisfactory Lenten penance, we offer for your reflection a practical spiritual primer as how to go about choosing the thing you will renounce this Lent. At the heart of every Christian sacrifice is a joy that must be not be concealed. Let your mortifications be merry and your carnivals solemn.

Lesson III: Which Scripture? Whose Tradition?

In this month’s lesson, we try and figure out whether those who wrote the New Testament understood that they were adding to the Scriptures. For not only did the Lord Jesus not directly instruct his disciples to write down his words and deeds; there are also no instructions as to who should do it. The question of who should write the New Testament is a question about authority. Did those authors know what they were doing? And did they have some understanding of the authority with which they were doing it? If we are to find our way back to the beginning- we must know what the beginning looked like.

The Cross, Not an Armband

Australia Day is upon us. And as has become our custom, an argument brews about what date this day should be celebrated. At the heart of the debate is a profound misunderstanding of our nation’s and its day. A profound misunderstanding that originated in our failure to understand what a Christian nation is and that ours is a Christian nation. In the following Special Article, we examine a better way of understanding our National Day and its date.

Lesson II: Whose Scripture? Which Tradition?

As Catholics, when we think of Sacred Scripture, we tend to take its existence as a given. We never ask ourselves why the first Christians wrote down their experiences and why it would occur to them to do so. After all, we still had the Jewish Scriptures which the Lord Himself referenced on many occasions. Why was there a need for a New Testament when the old one seemed to be perfectly acceptable? In this article, we examine the tradition that made the writing of a New Testament perfectly obvious to the first Christians.
St. Peter's Basilica

Lesson I: Does Tradition have a tradition?

Sacred (Apostolic) Tradition is one of the pillars of Catholic Doctrine. But from where did the idea for tradition come? Does sacred tradition have an origin? Can it be argued that Sacred Tradition has a tradition? In this series we begin to examine the origins of the Apostolic Tradition that lie deep in the Church’s history in order to shed light on the direction we need to go today.
Oriens Placeholder

#1 From the Editor’s Desk

Oriens Journal © 2025
Developed by