The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (685 page)

Donation of Constantine
.

A spurious document designed to strengthen the authority of the church and of Rome, purporting to report how Constantine conferred on Pope Sylvester I (314–35) the primacy over other sees and secular rule in the W. Empire.

 
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Donatism
.

A
schism
in Christian N. Africa in the 4th cent. The Donatists refused to accept the
consecration
of Caecilian as
bishop
of Carthage in 311 because his consecrator had been a
traditor
(one who had given up copies of the Bible for confiscation) in the recent persecution of Diocletian. The local bishops consecrated a rival to Caecilian, and he was soon succeeded by Donatus, from whom the schism is named. Their opponents, especially
Augustine
, held that the unworthiness of ministers did not invalidate the sacraments, since their minister was Christ.

 
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Dönmeh
(followers of Jewish false messiah)
:

see
DOENMEH
.

 
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(1571/2–1631).
Christian
Metaphysical poet
and priest. Brought up a Roman Catholic, he became an Anglican in the 1590s, after studying at Oxford and possibly Cambridge. He was ordained in 1615, becoming Dean of St Paul's in 1621. He wrote both love poetry and religious verse: the ingenious love poet becomes an explorer of the paradoxes of God's mercy and grace.

 
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Door gods
.

Three Chinese tutelary deities, derived, traditionally, from three officials of the emperor T’ang Tai Tsung (d. 649), of whom the best known was Wei Cheng. When the emperor was afflicted by bad dreams, the three officials stood outside his door to ward off visiting spirits. They were later replaced by painted representations, and can be found in this form on the doorposts of Taoist temples, and sometimes of homes.

 
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(Tib.,
rdo-rje
). ‘Lord of stones’. It was originally the thunderbolt (
vajra
) weapon of the Hindu god
Indra
, and thus the source of the name for
Vajray
na
Buddhism. The dorje became identified with the immoveable and indestructible, as a diamond, and from there it shifted to the clear, translucent essence of all reality, which is emptiness of all qualities,
nyat
. In Tib. Buddhism, the dorje is the masculine symbol of the skilful (
up
ya
) path to enlightenment, while the ritual bell (
drilbu
) is the feminine symbol of the path of wisdom (
prajña
).