DOGMA. The noun δόγμα, G1504, which is of infrequent occurrence in the NT, originally signified “an opinion” or “a judgment.” It came to mean “a judgment given with authority” and so “a decree.” Thus it refers to imperial decrees in Luke 2:1; Acts 17:7 (cf. Heb 11:23 where a minor variant uses it of a decree of Pharaoh). It is used also of religious decrees (Eph 2:15; Col 2:14) by which the decrees of God expressed in the Mosaic law are in view. To this realm also belongs the verb δογματίζομαι (“I submit myself to ordinances”), used once in the NT (Col 2:20). The noun is used in Acts 16:4 of the decrees of the Jerusalem Council. The verb δοκέω, G1506, is from the same root and is used impersonally, with the meaning “it seemed good,” in the account of the Council’s proceedings (Acts 15:22, 25, 28). It may have been due to its use at such a Council that it came to be employed widely by the early Fathers with reference to official doctrinal pronouncements of the Church, the meaning the Eng. word normally bears today. It is found in this sense in Ignatius (Epistle to the Magnesians, 13), fairly often in Origen, and frequently from the Council of Nicaea onward.