RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Dort Dosker
signed by all at the 136th session (Acr. 23). The doctrine of absolute predestination was maintained, though not acceptable to the supralapsarians. It was now decided at Bogerman's suggestion to depose the Remonstrants from their positions, and the provincial synods, the classes, and presbyteries were directed to execute the sentence. The Confession and Catechism were considered in presence of the foreign delegates and were found to agree in every respect with Scripture. Finally Conrad Vorstius (q.v.) was declared unworthy of his position as professor of theology on account of his heretical writings.
On May 6 the members of the Synod marched in procession to the cathedral of Dort, where Bogerman delivered a Latin address and the secretaries read the canons against the Remonstrants. Three days later they met for a formal farewell to the foreign delegates at a banquet tendered by the city authorities of Dort. The Dutch delegates met again from May 13 to May 29 to consider certain ecclesiastical affairs.
For two centuries the decision of the Synod of Dort was the basis of the Reformed Church in Holland, and the Canones Dordracenses gave it a peculiar character; for what they stated concerning predestination differed as much from Calvin's Institutiones as from the Helvetian Confession and the Consensus Genevensis. H. C. RoGGEt.
Bibliography: For the original records consult: Acta synodi . Dordrechti, Dort, 1620; Acta et scripta synodalia Dordracena ministrorum remonstrantium Herderwici, ib. 1620; Canones Synodi Dordracence, cum notis D. Tileni, Paris, 1622. Consult: J. Halesius, Hist, concilii Dordraceni, Hamburg, 1724; M. Graf, Beytrage zur Kenntniss der Geschichte der Synode von Dordrecht, Basel, 1725; B. Glasius, Geschiedenis der . . Synode . . te Dordrecht, 2 vols., Leyden, 1860-61; Schaff, Creeds, i. 512- 523 (history), iii. 550-597 (the canons, in Lat. and Eng.); Moeller, Christian Church, iii. 410-415 (lucid). The Canons of the Synod of Dort are part of the symbolical books of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in America, and are officially published by that denomination (New York).
DOSITHEOS, do-si'the-08, OF JERUSALEM:
Patriarch of Jerusalem 1699-1707, and one of the most important figures of the modern Greek Church. He reformed the cloisters by a strict insistence on their communal life, erected churches, took great interest in the Holy Sepulcher, and defended the holy places against the claims of the Roman Catholics and the Armenians. He extirpated the Protestant tendency which had entered the Church through Cyril Lucar(q.v.), and opposed in his "Manual " (Bucharest, 1690) Johannes Karyophyllis, the logothete of Constantinople, who taught a Calvinistic doctrine of the Lord's Supper. He assailed the Roman Catholic Church both in practise and by the publication of such controversial works as the " Book of Absolution " (Jassy, 1692), the " Book of Love " (1699), and the " Book of Grace " (1705). His chief objects of attack were the union, the procession of the Holy Ghost, and the light of Mount Tabor. His chief work was his posthumous " History of the Patriarchs in Jerusalem " (Bucharest, 1715), in which he gave the entire history of the Greek Church and dogma, together with savage polemics against other Churches. Despite its lack of criticism, the book
is valuable for its material where Dositheos drew from sources accessible to him alone, and it thus forms a Greek counterpart to the Annals of Baronius and the Magdeburg Centuries.
(Philipp Meyer.)
Bibliography: E. Legrand, Bibliographie hellenique, 4 vols.. Pans, 1894-98, and the works cited under Jerd- SALEM, Synod of.
DOSITHEUS, do-sith'e-TJs, THE SAMARITAN:
A false Messiah among the Samaritans, and founder of a religious sect. Very little is known of him; and the uncertainty of the reports is increased by his being confounded with an older Dositheus. the teacher of Zadok, who founded the sect of the Sadducees. He was probably a contemporary of Jesus, or perhaps a little later. In those days of great religious excitement he presented himself to the Samaritans as the prophet promised in Deut. xviii. 18 (which passage, according to Samaritan doctrine, is the only true Messianic prophecy ever given) and as the Son of God (Origen, Contra Celsum, i. 57, vi. 11; ANF, iv. 421, 578). His doctrines can not be definitely determined. He seems to have laid stress upon the precepts of the law (Epiphanius, Hcer., i. 13) and gave to the words concerning the Sabbath in Ex. xvi. 29 a ridiculously literal interpretation (Origen, De principiis, IV. i. 17: " Each one must remain until the evening in the posture, place, or position in which he found himself on the Sabbath-day; i.e., if found sitting, he is to sit the whole day, or if reclining, he is to recline the whole day," ANF, iv. 366). The number of his followers was probably never great, but they lasted into the sixth century. Theophilus, a Persian, wrote against them in the fourth century (Assemani, Bibl. Orient., i. 42), and in 588 Dositheans and Samaritans disputed in Egypt over Deut. xviii. 18 (cf. Photius, Bibl. cod., 230).
(G. UHLHORNt.) Bibliography: J. L. von Mosheim, Institutiones historice Christiana;, i. 376-389, Helmstadt, 1739 (the fullest account, cf. Eng. transl., ed. W Stubbs, i. 86, London, 1863); C. W. F. Walch, Historic der Ketzereien, i. 182 sqq., Leipsic, 1762; A. Hilgenfeld, Die Ketzergeschichte des Urchristenthums, pp. 155 sqq., Leipsic, 1884; Harnack, Litteratur, i. 152 sqq.; DCB, i. 902-904.
DOSKER, HENRY ELIES: Presbyterian (Southern Branch); b. at Bunschoten (25 m. s.e. of Amsterdam), Holland, Feb. 5, 1855. He studied at the Latin school, Harlingen, Holland, the gymnasium of Zwolle, Holland, Hope College, Holland, Mich. (B.A., 1876), New Brunswick Theological Seminary, and McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago (B.D., 1879). After pastorates at Ebenezer (1879-82) and Grand Haven, Mich. (1882-86), he was lector of historic theology in the Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Mich., until 1888, and then pastor in the same city till 1894. He was then appointed professor of church history in Western Theological Seminary, and since 1903 has been professor of the same subject in the Presbyterian Seminary of Kentucky, Louisville, Ky. He edited Hope, the magazine of Hope College, 1894-1903, and was associate editor of the Presbyterian and Reformed Review 1898- 1902. Since 1903 he has been an editorial contributor to the Christian Observer, Louisville, Ky.
Douai Dowden