DOSITHEANS. - An ancient sect founded by a certain Dositeo the Samaritan. The information available about this figure is very uncertain and contradictory. J. B. Cotelier (in *Constitutions apostolicae*, VI, 8: PG I, 924), Thaller (in *Kirchenlexikon*, III, cols. 1997-98), F. X. Krauss (*Dosithe et les Dositheens*, in *Revue des études juives*, 42 (1901), pp. 27-42) and other scholars deem it necessary, in order to reconcile the data from ancient sources, to distinguish at least two figures by this name, both heresiarchs, corruptors of the Bible, and rejecters of the prophetic books.
The first, a Jew by origin who later joined the Samaritans, is said to have lived before Christ and to have been the teacher of Sadoc and the father of the Sadducees. Those who deny the resurrection of the dead, the immortality of the soul, and teach a life according to the flesh seem to derive from him. The other Dositeo, however, would have been nearly contemporary with Jesus Christ. His name is linked to that of Simon Magus, of whom he was first the teacher and then the disciple. He spread his doctrine among the Samaritans, claiming to be the Messiah promised by Moses in Deut. 18:18. To justify his assertions in contrast with the books of the Prophets, he rejected the authority of those books, instead giving all his preference to the Pentateuch of Moses. He had 30 disciples chosen from among his followers, as well as a woman called Luna. He died of starvation in a cave, it is not known whether at the hands of his enemies, or due to his excessive abstinence, or to make his disciples believe he had ascended to heaven.
His followers recognized only the Pentateuch of Moses as sacred, taught the doctrine of the eternity of the world, and opposed immoral antinomianism. Their way of life was particularly rigorous: they practiced circumcision and fasting, exhorted observance of continence and virginity, condemned second marriages and the eating of meat. A characteristic of theirs was the strict observance of the Sabbath rest, so much so that they remained in the position in which they were found at the start of the Sabbath for the entire day. Toward the end of the 6th century this sect still existed in Egypt, since it was opposed by Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria, d. 608, as appears from a writing of his published by Photius (*Bibliotheca*, cod. 230).