DOGGER BANK, an extensive shoal in the North Sea, about 60 m. E. of the coast of Northumberland, England. Over its most elevated parts there is a depth of only about six fathoms, but the depth is generally from ten to twenty fathoms. It is well known as a fishing ground. The origin of the name is obscure; but the middle Dutch dogger signifies a trawling vessel, and was formerly applied generally to the two-masted type of vessel employed in the North Sea fisheries, and also to their crews (doggermen) and the fish taken (dogger-fish). Off the south end of the bank an engagement took place between English and Dutch fleets in 1781. On the night of the 21st of October 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War, some British trawlers of the Hull fishing fleet were fired upon by vessels of the Russian Baltic fleet under Admiral Rozhdestvensky on its voyage to the Far East, one trawler being sunk, other boats injured, two men killed and six wounded. This incident created an acute crisis in the relations between Russia and England for several days, the Russian version being that they had seen Japanese torpedo-boats, but on the 28th Mr Balfour, the English prime minister, announced that the tsar had expressed regret and that an international commission would investigate the facts with a view to the punishment of any responsible parties. The terms were settled on 25th November, the commission being composed of five officers (British, Russian, American and French, and one selected by them), to meet in Paris. On the 22nd of December the four original members, Vice-admiral Sir Lewis Beaumont, Vice-admiral Kaznakov (afterwards replaced by Vice-admiral Dubassov), Rear-admiral Davis and Vice-admiral Fournier, met and chose Admiral Baron von Spaun (Austria-Hungary) as the fifth. Their report was issued on the 25th of February 1905. While recognizing that the information received as to a possible attack led the admiral to mistake the trawlers for the enemy, the majority of the commissioners held Rozhdestvensky responsible for the firing and its results, and “being of opinion that there were no torpedo-boats either among the trawlers nor anywhere near” concluded that “the opening of fire was not justifiable,” though they absolved him and his squadron from 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 Greek Fathers. Barnabas, chap, i., they confine the word to doctrine. 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 Latin Fathers. title of the treatise now generally ascribed to Gennadius, 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. Medieval usages. 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.) 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. The division is found applied also to the “Nicene-Constantinopolitan” creed, both in East and West. Sometimes fourteen articles are detected (in either creed), 7 + 7; the sacred number twice over.[5]