DOGMA, in the theological sense of the word, is a tenet of faith given in the word of God whether written or traditional and pro posed by the Church to the belief of the faithful. Primarily the term dogma, being derived from the Greek verb aoKew, to seem, to appear, meant only opinion; but in the ancient schools of philosophy dogmata (plural) were the doc trines of the several heads of such schools. The disciples of Pythagoras accepted on the au thority of The Master, as they styled him em phatically, the tenets he proposed, the sufficient ground of the disciples' belief being that avror °He said it.° Perhaps the first employment of dogma, dogmata in the now current meaning of the word, is found in a work by Saint Igna tius, disciple of Saint John the Evangelist, who in an epistle to the Magnesians exhorts them to be °established in the dogmata of the Lord and the apostles .° The dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church purport to have been taught by the apostles and to have been by them handed down viva voce or in writing, to their contemporaries and successors, who in turn did and still do the like: that tradition is the foundation of all the Church's articles of belief. The Church has no power to frame new dogmas and she must to the end of time pro claim the self-same dogmas which at any time in her history were authentically set forth as truths of divine revelation. What the Church may
do and has done is to define, as occasion may require, the precise meaning of her teachings, bringing out into definite shape what before was not expressed with all necessary fulness or clearness. An example of this is had in the appli cation of the term transubstantiation to signify what the Catholic Church had at all times be lieved and taught — that the bread and wine are, in the sacrament of the Eucharist, really and substantially changed into Christ's body and blood. Since the doctrines thus advanced are for belief and not for discussion the dogmatic method may really be considered as the ex pression of an opinion without advancing there for any adequate reason or proof and without considering the viewpoint of others or the light in which it appears to them. Consult Arnold, Matthew,
and Dogma' (1873); Lightfoot, J. B., (Commentary on the Epistle to the
Schmidt.,
D (1895) ; Stange, C.,
Dogma and seine
Beurteilung in der neueren Dogmengeschichte)
(1898) ; Wetzer and Welte,