DORSIVENTRAL (Lat. dorsum, the back, venter, the belly), a term used to describe an organ which has two surfaces differing from each other in appearance and structure, as an ordinary leaf.
DORT, SYNOD OF. An assembly of the Reformed Dutch Church, with deputies from Switzerland, the Palatinate, Nassau, Hesse, East Friesland, Bremen, Scotland and England, called to decide the theological differences existing between the Arminians (or Remonstrants) and the Calvinists (or Counter-Remonstrants), was held at Dort or Dordrecht (q.v.) in the years 1618 and 1619. The government of Louis XIII. prohibited the attendance of French delegates. During the life of Arminius a bitter controversy had sprung up between his followers and the strict Calvinists, led by Francis Gomar, his fellow-professor at Leiden; and, in order to decide their disputes, a synodical conference was proposed, but Arminius died before it could be held. At the conference held at the Hague in 1610 the Arminians addressed a remonstrance to the states-general in the form of five articles, which henceforth came to be known as the five points of Arminianism. In these they reacted against both the supralapsarian and the infralapsarian developments of the doctrine of predestination and combated the irresistibility of grace; they held that Christ died for all men and not only for the elect, and were not sure that the elect might not fall from grace. This conference had no influence in reconciling the opposing parties, and another, held at Delft in the year 1613, was equally unsuccessful. In 1614, at the instance of the Arminian party, an edict was passed by the states-general, in which toleration of the opinions of both parties was declared and further controversy forbidden; but this act only served, by rousing the jealousy of the Calvinists, to fan the controversial flame into greater fury. Gradually the dispute pervaded all classes of society, and the religious questions became entangled with political issues; the partisans of the house of Orange espoused the cause of the stricter Calvinism, whereas the bourgeois oligarchy of republican tendencies, led by Oldenbarnevelt and Hugo Grotius, stood for Arminianism. In 1617 Prince Maurice of Orange committed himself definitely to the Calvinistic party, found an occasion for throwing Oldenbarnevelt and Grotius into prison, and in November of that year called a synod intended to crush the Arminians. This synod, which assembled at Dort in November 1618, was strictly national—called by the national authority to decide a national dispute, and not intended to have more than a national influence. The foreign deputies were invited to attend, only to assist by their advice in the settlement of a controversy which concerned the Netherland church alone, and which the Netherland church alone could decide. At the fourth sitting it was decided to cite Simon Episcopius and several other Remonstrants to appear within fourteen days before the synod, to state and justify their doctrines. It was also agreed to allow the Arminian deputies to take part in the deliberations, only on condition that they forbore to consult with, or in any way assist, their cited brethren, but this they refused. During the interval between the citation and the appearance of the accused, the professorial members of the synod were instructed to prepare themselves to be able to confute the Arminian errors, and the synod occupied itself with deliberations as to a new translation of the Bible, for which a commission was named, made arrangements for teaching the Heidelberg catechism, and granted permission to the missionaries of the East Indies to baptize such children of heathen parents as were admitted into their families. At the 25th sitting Episcopius and the others cited appeared, when Episcopius surprised the deputies by a bold and outspoken defence of his views, and even went so far as to say that the synod, by excluding the Arminian deputies, could now only be regarded as a schismatic assembly. The Remonstrants were asked to file copious explanations of the five points in dispute (Sententia Remonstrantium), but objecting to the manner in which they were catechized, they were, at the 57th sitting, dismissed from the synod as convicted “liars and deceivers.” The synod then proceeded in their absence to judge them from their published writings, and came to the conclusion that as ecclesiastical rebels and trespassers they should be deprived of all their offices. The synodical decision in regard to the five points is contained in the canons adopted at the 136th session held on the 23rd of April 1619; the points were: unconditional election, limited atonement, total depravity, irresistibility of grace, final perseverance of the saints. The issue of supralapsarianism v. infralapsarianism was avoided. These doctrinal decisions and the sentence against the Remonstrants were, at the 144th sitting, read in Latin before a large audience in the great church. The Remonstrants were required to subscribe the condemnation, and many of them refused and were banished. The synod was concluded on the 9th of May 1619, by a magnificent banquet given by the chief magistrate of Dort. The Dutch deputies remained a fortnight longer to attend to ecclesiastical business. Though the canons of Dort were adopted by but two churches outside of Holland, the synod ranks as the most impressive assemblage of the Reformed Church.
Authorities.—Acta synodi nationalis ... Dordrechti habitae (Lugd. Bat. 1620, official edition); Acta der Nationale Synode te Dordrecht 1618 (Leiden, 1887), French translation (Leiden, 1622 and 1624, 2 vols.), for the Canons, and the Sententia Remonstrantium, E. F. Karl Müller, Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformierten Kirche (Leipzig, 1903), p. lix. ff., 843 ff.; for canons and abridged translation used by the Reformed Church in America, P. Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom (3rd ed., New York, 1877), 550 ff. See also H. Heppe, in Niedner’s Zeitschrift für die historische Theologie, Bd. 23 (Hamburg, 1853), 226-327 (letters of Hessian deputies); Acta et scripta synodalia Dordracena ministrorum Remonstrantium, Hardervici, 1620 (valuable side-lights); A. Schweizer, Die protestantischen Centraldogmen in ihrer Entwicklung innerhalb der reformierten Kirche, zweite Hälfte (Zürich, 1856), 25-224; H. C. Rogge in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie, Bd. 4 (Leipzig, 1898), 798-802; H. H. Kuyper, De Post-Acta of Nahandelingen van de Nationale Synode van Dordrecht, een historische Studie (Amsterdam, 1899, new material); J. Reitsma, Geschiednis van de Hervorming en de Hervormde Kerk der Nederlanden (2nd ed. Groningen, 1899); F. Loofs, Dogmengeschichte (4th ed., Halle, 1906), 935 ff.; T. Van Oppenraij, La Prédestination dans l’Eglise réformée des Pays-Bas depuis l’origine jusqu’au synode national de Dordrecht (Louvain, 1906).
(W. W. R.*)
DORTMUND, a town of Germany, the chief commercial centre of the Prussian province of Westphalia, on the Emscher, in a fertile plain, 50 m. E. from Düsseldorf by rail. Pop. (1875) 57,742; (1895) 111,232; (1905) 175,292. Since the abolition of the old walls in 1863 and the conversion of their site into promenades, the town has rapidly assumed a modern appearance. The central part, however, with its winding narrow streets, is redolent of its historical past, when, as one of the leading cities of the Hanseatic League, it enjoyed commercial supremacy over all the towns of Westphalia. Among its ancient buildings must be mentioned the Reinoldikirche, with fine stained-glass windows, the Marienkirche, the nave of which dates from the 11th century, the Petrikirche, with a curious altar, and the Dominican church, with beautiful cloisters. The 13th-century town hall was restored in 1899 and now contains the municipal antiquarian museum, having been superseded by a more commodious building. Among the chief modern structures may be mentioned the magnificent post office, erected in 1895, the provincial law courts, the municipal infirmary and the large railway station. To the W. of the last there existed down to 1906 (when it was removed) one of the ancient lime trees of the Königshof, where the meetings of the Vehmgericht were held (see [Fehmic Courts]). But the real interest of Dortmund centres in its vast industries, which owe their development to the situation of the town in the centre of the great Westphalian coal basin. In the immediate vicinity are also extensive beds of iron ore, and this combination of mineral wealth has enabled the town to become a competitor with Essen, Oberhausen, Duisburg and Hagen in the products of the iron industry. These in Dortmund more particularly embrace steel railway rails, mining plant, wire ropes, machinery, safes and sewing machines. Dortmund has also extensive breweries, and, in addition to the manufactured goods already enumerated, does a considerable trade in corn and wood. Besides being well furnished with a convenient railway system, linking it with the innumerable manufacturing towns and villages of the iron district, it is also connected with the river Ems by the Dortmund-Ems Canal, 170 m. in length.
Dortmund, the Throtmannia of early history, was already a town of some importance in the 9th century. In 1005 the emperor Henry II. held here an ecclesiastical council, and in 1016 an imperial diet. The town was walled in the 12th century, and in 1387-1388 successfully withstood the troops of the archbishop of Cologne, who besieged it for twenty-one months. About the middle of the 13th century it joined the Hanseatic League. At the close of the Thirty Years’ War the population had become reduced to 3000. In 1803 Dortmund lost its rights as a free town, and was annexed to Nassau. The French occupied it in 1806, and in 1808 it was made over by Napoleon to the grand-duke of Berg, and became the chief town of the department of Ruhr. Through the cession of Westphalia by the king of the Netherlands, on the 31st of May 1815, it became a Prussian town.
See Thiersch, Geschichte der Freireichsstadt Dortmund (Dort, 1854), and Ludoff, Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler in Dortmund (Paderborn, 1895); also A. Shadwell, Industrial Efficiency (London, 1906).