III. DOSITHEUS. Dositheans. The Jews pretend, that Dosthai, or Dositheus the son of Janneus, lived in the reign of Sennacherib, and was one of the Priests sent by this Prince to instruct the colony of Cuthæans, planted by him 2 Kings xvii. 24, 25, 27, &c. Epiphan. de Hæres. l. 1. Photius Cod. 130.in Samaria, and devoured by lions. St. Epiphanius will have it, that the Dositheans were a fourth branch of Hereticks at Samaria; but he does not say enough of them to inform us, who they were, and whence these Hereticks came. Photius relates, that after our Saviour’s conversation with the Samaritan woman, near the well of Sichem, there arose two considerable parties in Samaria, one whereof maintained Jesus Christ to be the true Messiah foretold Deut. xviii. 15, 18.by Moses, in these words; God will raise you up a Prophet like unto me: the other maintained, that Dositheus, who was born at Samaria, and was contemporary with Simon the Magician, was the true Messiah.
Hegesip. apud Eus. Hist. Eccl. l. 4. c.22. Clem. Constit. Apost. l. 6. c.8.Hegesippus, who lived in the second Century, places Dositheus and his Followers at the beginning of Christianity, with those of Simon the Magician. There is a Treatise against Heresies ascribed to St. Hippolytus which began with the Dositheans. Origen sets Jesus Christ, whose Gospel was preached over the whole earth, in opposition to Simon and Dositheus, whose Sects were already quite destroy’d, tho’ they had boasted of performing Miracles, and Dositheus would have passed for the Messiah, when our Saviour appeared. The Author of the Apostolical Constitutions asserts, that Cleobius and Simon the Magician were Disciples to Dositheus, but that they drove him away, and deprived him of the first Rank, which he attempted to assume among them.
This is all very remote from what the Jews tell us, who make Dositheus to live in Sennacherib’s time; and from St. Jerom’s opinion, who declares him to be the head of the Sadduces. It seems to be out of all question, that this man was living in the time of Simon the Magician, and that his Party was already formed in the Country of Samaria, when our Saviour appeared. We are assured, that he was by birth a Jew, and that being desirous to distinguish himself by some new explanations among the Doctors of his nation, who studied the mystical Interpretations of the Law, and the Traditions of their Elders, and affecting the first Rank among these Rabbins, he was rejected by them; and that out of pique he embraced the Party of the Samaritans, among whom he formed a Sect1 which observed Circumcision like the Jews, and the Sabbath with so much rigour, that for the four and twenty hours of this festival’s continuance, they remained without stirring in the least from the particular place where they were when the sabbath began; they likewise fasted very rigidly, and denied themselves every thing that had life in it.
Some among them kept their virginity, and others abstained from the use of marriage when their wives were with child; or, as others say, they condemned second marriages. They received only the five Books of Moses, and held Dositheus their Head, to be the Messiah2. He himself applied the prophecies in the Pentateuch which we explain of Jesus Christ, as belonging to himself. The Samaritans who were opposite to Dositheus, made an application of them to Joshua, Moses’s successor. It is affirmed that Dositheus disappeared, and was found in a cave, gnawed with worms, and full of flies. Some have attributed his retreat to the foolish vanity of desiring to be thought immortal, as if he had been taken away from the conversation of men, and transported alive into heaven. But the discovery of his body manifested his imposture; nevertheless, without undeceiving his disciples, who gave out that he had retired in order to pursue the study of philosophy with more liberty and leisure. There were still some of his disciples remaining in the sixth Century in Egypt.
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