Dositheos (Samaritan) - Christian and Jewish Sources

Christian and Jewish Sources

He lived probably in the first century of the common era. According to Pseudo-Tertullian, he was the first to deny the Prophets — a heresy that gave rise to the party of the Sadducees. Jerome gives the same account. Hippolytus I begins his enumeration of the thirty-two heresies by mentioning Dositheos; hence this sect is made to appear older than the Sadducees, and on this heresy is based the system of Philaster.

He was not mentioned by the two early patristic authors Justin Martyr or Irenaeus.

The Samaritan chronicler Abu al-Fatḥ of the fourteenth century, who used reliable native sources, places the origin of the Dosithean sect in the time before Alexander the Great. The rabbinical sources also contain obscure references to Dositheos and Sabbæus as the two founders respectively of the Samaritan sects of the Dositheans and Sabuæans. These have been identified with the Samaritans Sabbæeus and Theodosius, of whom Josephus relates that they defended before the Egyptian king Ptolemæus Philometor, against Andronicus, the advocate of the Jews, the sanctity of Mt. Gerizim.

The Samaritan chronicles (the Book of Joshua and Abu al-Fath's Annales) recount a similar discussion between Zerubbabel and Sanballat. As Josephus says that the Samaritans had two advocates, he doubtless meant the two apostles Dositheus and Sabbæus, whose doctrine—including the sanctity of Mt. Gerizim, rejection of the prophetical books of the Old Testament, and denial of the resurrection—was on the whole identical with that of the Samaritans.

According to Hegesippus, Dositheus lived later than Simon Magus, the first heresiarch of the Church; other authors speak of him as the teacher of Simon, at the same time confounding him with Simon Magus, connecting his name with Helena, and stating that he was the "being". Origen says that Dositheus pretended to be the Christ (Messiah), applying Deut. xviii. 15 to himself, and he compares him with Theudas and Judas the Galilean. Origen also says that Dositheus' disciples pretended to possess books by him, and related concerning him that he never suffered death, but was still alive. To this must be compared the story of Epiphanius regarding his death by starvation in a cave. Epiphanius adds that while some of the Dositheans lead loose lives, others preserve a rigid morality, refrain from the use of meat, observe the rite of circumcision, and are very strict in keeping the Sabbath and in observing the laws of Levitical purity. These statements may, however, refer to another Dositheus, who belonged to the Encratites.

Origen says that the Dositheans were never in a flourishing state, and that in his time they had almost entirely disappeared, scarcely thirty of them being left. The Midrash, however, speaks of Dositheans, with whom Rabbi Meïr had dealings, and two names, "Dosion and Dosthion," are also mentioned, which either refer to two Dosithean sectarians or form a double designation for the heretic Dositheus. Yet the fact that the patriarch Eulogius of Alexandria (who probably lived 582-603) disputed successfully against the Samaritan followers of Dostan (Δοσϑήν) or Dositheus, and wrote a work expressly against them (Photius, "Bibliotheca," cod. 230), shows that the Dositheans existed and even exercised a certain power in the sixth century. Origen possibly refers to a Christian sect of the Dositheans, who in fact left no traces, while the Samaritan sect certainly continued to exist. In Egypt especially, this sect was probably numerous enough to induce the Christian patriarch of Alexandria to engage in polemics against it.