DOGMA

(Gr. Soxetv, to seem.) Literally, a conclusion founded upon experience. In Theology, dogma has been defined to be a fundamental article of belief derived from acknowledged authority, and is usually applied to what are considered as the e ential doctrines of Christianity, deduced either from the Scriptures or from the fathers of the church. (See Theology.) There are, however, many other dogmas peculiar to the different sects into which Christianity is divided. Thus the bulls and decretals of the pope, together with all the councils both Of earlier and later times, are regarded by the Roman Catholics with as much veneration as the authority of the Scriptures and th/3 holy fathers. The Greek church, on the other hand, acknowledges the authority only of the earlier councils, in addition to that of the Scriptures and the fathers; and the Luther an and other Protestant churches have embodiedsionsoffaith and their other dogmas ecclesiastical in theirstanlairespect'reas. Dogma-confestic theology, as this branch of divinity is called, in contradistinction to moral and scholastic theology, forms an important object of study in many of the Continental universities.In the Protestant universities of Germany, there are chairs set apart for th*1 history of dogmas, or, as it is termed, Dogmatik; in which the origin and nature of the [s. 374]