discredit either to their “military qualities” or their “humanity.” The affair ended in compensation being paid by the Russian government.
DOGGETT (or Dogget), THOMAS (d. 1721), English actor, was born in Dublin, and made his first appearance in London in 1691 as Nincompoop in D’Urfey’s Love for Money. In this part, and as Solon in the same author’s Marriage-hater matched, he gained the favour of the public. He followed Betterton to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, creating the part of Ben, especially written for him, in Congreve’s Love for Love, with which the theatre opened (1695); and next year played Young Hobb in his own The Country Wake. He was associated with Cibber and others in the management of the Haymarket and Drury Lane, and he continued to play comedy parts at the former until his retirement in 1713. Doggett is highly spoken of by his contemporaries, both as an actor and as a man, and is frequently referred to in The Tatler and Spectator. It was he who in 1715 founded the prize of “Doggett’s Coat and Badge” in honour of the house of Hanover, “in commemoration of his Majesty King George’s happy Accession to the Brittish Throne.” The prize was a red coat with a large silver badge on the arm, bearing the white horse of Hanover, and the race had to be rowed annually on the 1st of August on the Thames, by six young watermen who were not to have exceeded the time of their apprenticeship by twelve months. Although the first contest took place in 1715, the names of the winners have only been preserved since 1791. The race is still rowed each year, but under modified conditions.
See Thomas Doggett, Deceased (London, 1908).
DOGMA (Gr. δόγμα, from δόκεῖν, to seem; literally “that which seems, sc. good or true or useful” to any one), a term which has passed through many senses both general and technical, and is now chiefly used in theology. In Greek constitutional history the decision of—“that which seemed good to”—an assembly was called a δόγμα (i.e. decree), and throughout its history the word has generally implied a decision, or body of decisions or opinions, officially adopted and regarded by those who make it as possessing authority. As a technical term in theology, it has various shades of meaning according to the degree of authority which is postulated and the nature of the evidence on which it is based. Thus it has been used broadly of all theological doctrines, and also in a narrower sense of fundamental beliefs only, confession of which is insisted upon as a term of church communion. By sceptics the word “dogma” is generally used contemptuously, for an opinion grounded not upon evidence but upon assertion; and this attitude is so far justified from the purely empirical standpoint that theological dogmas deal with subjects which, by their very nature, are not susceptible of demonstration by the methods of physical science. Again, popularly, an unproved ex cathedra statement of any kind is called “dogmatic,” with perhaps an insinuation that it is being obstinately adhered to without, or beyond, or in defiance of, obtainable evidence. But again to “dogmatize” may mean simply to assert, instead of hesitating or suspending judgment.
Three pre-Christian or extra-ecclesiastical usages are recorded by a half-heretical churchman, Marcellus of Ancyra (in Eusebius of Caesarea, Contra Marcellum, i. 4);—words which Adolf Harnack has placed on the title-page of his larger History of Dogma. First there is a medical usage—empirical versus dogmatic medicine. On this old-world technical controversy we need not dwell. Secondly, there is a philosophical usage (e.g. Cicero, Seneca and others). First principles—speculative or practical—are δόγματα, Lat. decreta, scita or placita. The strongest statement regarding the inviolability of such dogmas is in Cicero’s Academics, ii. chap. 9. But we have to remember that this is dialogue; that the speaker, Hortensius, represents a more dogmatic type of opinion than Cicero’s own; that it is the maxims of “wisdom,” not of any special school, which are described as unchangeable.[1] Marcellus’s third type of dogma is legal or political, the decree (says Marcellus) of the legislative assembly; but it might also be of the emperor (Luke ii. 1; Acts xvii. 7), or of a church gathering (Acts xvi. 4), or of Old Testament law; so especially in Philo the Jew, and in Flavius Josephus (even perhaps at Contra Apionem, i. 8).
While the New Testament knows only the political usage of δόγμα, the Greek Fathers follow one which is more in keeping with philosophical tradition. With few and early exceptions, such as we may note in the Epistle of Barnabas, chap, i., they confine the word to doctrine. Greek Fathers.Either dogma (sing.) or dogmas (plural) may be spoken of. Actually, as J. B. Lightfoot points out, the best Greek commentators among the Fathers are so dominated by this new usage, that they misinterpret Col. ii. 14 (20) and Eph. ii. 15 of Christian doctrines. Along with this goes the fundamental Catholic view of “dogmatic faith”—the expression is as old as Cyril of Jerusalem (died 386), if not older—according to which it consists in obedient assent to the voice of authority. All doctrines are “dogmas” to the Greek Fathers, not simply the central teachings of their system, as with the philosophers. Very noteworthy is Cyril of Jerusalem’s fourth Catechetical Discourse on the “Ten Dogmas” (we might render “Ten Great Doctrines”). The figure ten may be taken from the commandments,[2] as in Gregory Nazianzen’s later, and more incidental, decalogue of belief. In any case, Cyril marks out the way for the subsequent division of the creeds into twelve or fourteen “articles” or heads of belief (see below). In saying that all doctrines rank as “dogmas” during the Greek period, we ought to add a qualification. They do so, in so far as they are held to be of authority. Clement of Alexandria or Origen would not call his speculations dogmas. Yet these audacious spirits start from a basis of authority, and insist upon ὀρθοτομία δογμάτων (Stromata, vii. 763). The “dogma” or “dogmas” of heretics are frequently mentioned by orthodox writers. There can be no question of confining even orthodox “dogma” to conciliar decisions in an age when definition is so incomplete; still, we do meet with references to the Nicene “dogma” (e.g. letter in Theodoret, H.E. ii. 15). But dogma is not yet technical for what is Christian or churchly. The word which emerges in Greek for that purpose is “orthodox,” “orthodoxy,” as in John of Damascus (d. 760), or as in the official title still claimed by the Holy Orthodox Church of the East.
Latin Fathers borrow the word “dogma,” though sparingly, and employ it in all the Greek usages. Something novel is added by Jerome’s phrase (in the De viris illustribus, cc. xxxi., cix.) ecclesiastica dogmata,—found again in the title of the treatise now generally ascribed to Gennadius, Latin Fathers.and occurring once more in another writer of southern Gaul.[3] The phrase is a serviceable one, contrasting church teachings with heretical “dogmas.” But the main Latin use of dogma in patristic times is found in Vincent of Lerins (d. c. 450) in his brief but influential Commonitorium; again from southern Gaul. Thereafter the usage gradually drops. In Thomas Aquinas[4] it does not once occur. On the other hand Thomas has his own technical name—doctrine (sing.)Medieval usages. or rather sacra doctrina; and this expression holds its ground, though the usage of Abelard, Theologia, was destined to an even more important place (see Theology). Another medieval usage of importance is the division of the creed into twelve articles corresponding to the number of the apostles, who, according to a legend already found in Rufinus (d. 410) On the Apostles’ Creed, composed that formula by contributing each a single sentence.
- ↑ Sextus Empiricus (c. A.D. 240) denounces all forms of dogmatism, even perhaps the scepticism of definite denial. Blaise Pascal and Immanuel Kant, among others, have Sextus’s grouping in mind when they oppose themselves to “dogmatism” and “scepticism” alike. A new shade of condemnation for dogmas as things merely assumed comes to be noticeable here, especially in Kant.
- ↑ But there is a variant reading—eleven—supported by a different arrangement.
- ↑ Quoted by C. H. Turner in Journal of Theol. Studies (Oct. 1906, and cf. Oct. 1905). G. Elmenhorst’s statement, that Musanus and Didymus in an earlier age wrote treatises with the name De ecclesiasticis dogmatibus, seems a plain blunder, if we compare Jerome’s Latin with Eusebius’s Greek.
- ↑ “So viel uns bekannt”—J. B. Heinrich, “Dogma,” in Wetzer and Welte’s (Catholic) Kirchenlexikon.
