Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/94

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DOBENECK


70


DOCET^


Casimir IV, Jagielouczyk. He was employed as the ambassador of the PoHsh king to different foreign countries, and especially to Bohemia and Hungary, where he settled political disturbances. His ecclesi- astical superiors sent him as their representative to Pope Eugenius IV, and as delegate to the Council of Basle. He declined the .\rchbishopric of Prague, but shortly before his death was appointed Archbishop of Lembcrg. Dlugosz expended his great income for religious and philanthropic purposes ; he founded both churches and monasteries, also burses for the mainte- nance of poor scholars.

The most beautiful church which he founded, and beneath which he was buried, is in Cracow, and is called Xa Skalce (meaning, "Upon Rock", as the church was built on an enormous rock) . As a Polish historian he outranks all who preceded him. He was not content to repeat the statements made by other chroniclers, but examined for himself the oldest Pol- ish, Bohemian, Hungarian, Ruthenian, and German documents, to understand which thoroughly he stud- ied, in his old age, several foreign languages. His works offer abundant and rehable material not only for Polish, but also for general, history.

Dlugosz paid less attention to beauty of style than to veracity of statement, and wrote in a philosophic manner, as one who saw the action and purposes of Providence in all historical events. His great history of Poland (Historia Polonica in twelve volumes) was composed by order of his friend and master Cardinal Olesnicki. The works of Dlugosz were first published incompletely in 1614, and fully in 1711. The best edition is that in fourteen volumes by Carl Mecher- zynski: "Joarmis Dlugosz Senioris Canonici Cracovi- ensis Opera Omnia" (Cracow, 1S63-87). It includes his heraldic work "Banderia Prutenorum", also his "Life of St. Stanislaus", "Life of St. Knga", lives of many Polish bishops (Sees of Wroclaw, Poznah, Plock, Cracow, etc.), "Liber beneficiorum dioeccsis Cracov- iensis", " Lites ac res gesta? inter Polonos ordinemque Gruciferorum", "Annales seu cronicse inchti regni Poloniae ".

Caho, J. Longitius (Jena, 1863); Zeissberg, Die polnische Geschichlschreibung des Mittelalters (Leipzig, 1873); Bruckner, Dzieje Literalury Polskiej (Warsaw, 190S), I.

John Godrycz. Dobeneck. See Cochl^us.

Bobmayer, Mari.\n, a distinguished Benedictine theologian, b. 24 Oct., 1753, at Schwandorf, Bavaria; d. 21 Dec, 1805, at Amberg, Bavaria. He first en- tered the Society of Jesus, and after its suppression in 1773 joined the Benedictines in the monastery of Weissenohe, Diocese of Bamberg, where he was pro- fessed in 1775, and in 177S ordained priest. He was successively professor of philosophy at Neuburg, Ba- varia (1781-87), of dogmatic theology and ecclesias- tical history at Amberg (1787-94), and of dogmatic theology and patrology at the University of Ingolstadt (1794-99). On the reorganization of the latter school in 1799 he returned to his monastery of Weissenohe, where he remained until its secularization. He then retired to Amberg, where he taught theology imtil his death. In 1789 he published at .\mberg a "Con- spectus Theologia; Dogmaticte". His chief work is the "Systema Theologis Catholicse", edited after his death by Th. P. Senestrey in eight volumes (Svilzbach, 1807-19). The work is verj' learned and devoid of all harshness in its controversial parts.

Lindner. Die Schriflsleller . . . des Bcnedidiner-Ordens im heutiacn Kuniffrcich Haycm (Rati.'*bon, 18S0). I; Hurter, Somcndator (Innsbruck, 1895), III; Fischer in Kirchenlex., s.v,

Francis J. Schaefer.

Dobrizhofier, Martin, missionary, b. in Graz, Styria, 7 Sept., 1717; d. in Vienna, 17 July, 1791. He became a Jesuit in 1730. and twelve years later set out for the missions of South America, where he laboured among the Guaranis and the Abipones for eighteen


years. On the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Span- ish possessions in 1767, he returned to his native land. The Empress Maria Theresa frequently sent for Do- brizhoffer that she might hear his adventures from his own lips; and she is said to have taken great pleasure in his cheerful and animated conversation. He is the author of a work in three volumes entitled "Historia de Abiponibus, equestri bellicosaque Paraguaina na- tione" etc. (Vienna, 1783-1784), a Cierman transla- tion of which, by Profes.sor Keil of the University of Pesth, was published in Vienna the same year. This work is of great ethnological value. In the preface he says, "A seven years residence in the four colonies of the Abipones has afforded me opportunities of closely observing the manners, customs, superstitions, mili- tary discipline, slaughters infiicted and received, polit- ical and economical regulations, together with the vicissitudes of the colonies". He further declares that what he learned amongst the Paraguayans in the course of eighteen years, what he himself beheld in the colonies of the Indians and the Spaniards, in frequent and long journeys, through woods, mountains, plains and vast rivers, he sets forth, if not in an eloquent and brilliant narrative, certainly in a candid and an accu- rate one, which is at least deserving of credit. In the course of the work, Dobrizhoffer frequently takes occa- sion to refute and expose tlie erroneous statements of other writers respecting the Jesuits in Paraguay, and the malicious calumnies by which the ruin of their institutions in that country was unhappily effected. The English translation (An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay, London, 1822), commonly ascribed to Southey, is the work of Sara Coleridge, daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who judged it a performance " vmsurpassed for pure mother- English by anj-thing I have read for a long time". Dobrizhoffer in 1773 was appointed preacher to the Court in Vienna, a post which he held till his death.

BiscHlNG, WtichenlUche Nachrichten (1775), 35S; Biog. Vnivers. (Paris, 1S32), XI; Dirf., o/ A'q/. Bioa. (New York, 190S), IV, 773; Memoirs and Letters of Sara Coleridge, edited by her daughter (London, 1873); Edinburgh Review, CXXXIX, 23; SOMMEHVOOEI,, Bibl. de la c. de J. (Brussels, 1892), III, 108; Az.\it.\, Voyage dans I'Amerique Mcridionale (Paris, 1809).

Edward P. Spillane.

Docetae (Or. AotairaC), a heretical sect dating back to Apostolic times. Their name is derived from SA/ojcris, "appearance" or "semblance", because they taught that Christ only "appeared" or "seemed" to be a man, to have been bom, to have lived and suf- fered. Some denied the reality of Christ's human nature altogether, some only the reality of His human body or of His birth or death. The word Docetcc, which is best rendered by "Illusionists", first occurs in a letter of Serapion, Bishop of Antioch (190-203) to the Church at Rhossos, where troubles had arisen about the public reading of the apocni'phal Gospel of Peter. Serapion at first unsuspectingly allowed, but soon after forbade, this, saying that he had borrowed a copy from the sect who used it, "whom we call Doceta-". He suspected a connexion with Marcion- ism and found in this Gospel "some additions to the right teaching of the Saviour". A fragment of this apocrj'phon was discovered in 18S6 and contained three passages which savoured strongly of lUusionism. The name further occurs in Clement Ale.x. (d. 216), Strom., Ill, xiii,VII, xvii, where these sectariesare men- tioned together with the Hsematites as instances of heretics being named after their own special error. The heresy itself, however, is much older, as it is com- bated in the New Testament. Clement mentions a certain Julius Cassianus as 6 t^s doK^a-eus iiipxt-iv, "the founder of lUusionism". This name is known also to St. Jerome and Theotloret; and Cassianus is said to be a disciple of Valentinian, but nothing more is known of him. The idea of the unreality of Christ's human nature was heUl bj- the oldest Gnostic sects and