Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/299

 multitudes could keep it by them. On their arrival, the populace of Thessalonica, excited, as the legates thought, by Dorotheus, fell upon them, and killed John, a Catholic, who had received them in his house. News of these outrages arriving at Constantinople, the emperor Justin promised to summon Dorotheus before him. The pope wrote to his legates, saying that they must see Dorotheus deposed, and take care that Aristides should not be his successor. Dorotheus was cited before the emperor at Heraclea; he appealed to Rome, but the emperor thought it unadvisable to send him there, as his accusers would not be present. He was suddenly sent away from Heraclea, and the pope's legates, bp. John and the presbyter Epiphanius, who had remained at Thessalonica in his absence, wrote in alarm to the remaining legates at Constantinople lest Dorotheus and others should re-establish themselves in their sees by liberal use of money.

Dorotheus was now obliged by the emperor to send deputies to Rome to satisfy the pope. He accordingly wrote an agreeable letter, saying that he had exposed his life in defence of bp. John, when the populace had fallen upon him. Pope Hormisdas wrote back, saying that the crime was known to all the world, and required clearer defence; he remitted its examination to the patriarch of Constantinople. Hormisd.''Epp., Patr. Lat.'' lxiii. pp. 371, 372, 408, 445, 446, 452, 468, 473, 481, 499, etc.; Ceillier, x. 616, 618, 619, 625, 626, 628, 632, 633.

[W.M.S.]

Dositheus (1). The earliest ecclesiastical writers speak of a sect of Dositheans, which, though it never spread far outside Samaria, seems to have had some considerable duration in that quarter. It was rather a Jewish sect than a Christian heresy, for Dositheus was regarded rather as a rival than as a disciple of our Lord, but trustworthy information as to his history and his doctrines is very scanty. Only the name of himself and his sect occurs in Hegesippus's list of heresies, preserved by Eusebius (H. E. iv. 22). He is there placed next after Simon and Cleobius. The earliest detailed account of him is given in the Clementine writings, and it is not unlikely that their account was derived from the treatise on heresies of Justin Martyr. The Recognitions (ii. 8) and Homilies (ii. 24) agree in making Simon Magus a disciple of Dositheus, and the Recognitions would lead us to suppose that Dositheus was clearly the elder. They represent him as already recognised as the prophet like unto Moses, whom Jehovah was to raise up; when Simon with difficulty and entreaty obtained election among his 30 disciples. The Homilies make Simon and Dositheus fellow disciples of John the Baptist, to whom in several places the author shews hostility. As our Lord, the Sun, had 12 apostles, so John, the Moon, had 30 disciples, or even more accurately answering to the days of a lunation, 29½, for one of them was a woman. On John's death Simon was absent studying magic in Egypt, and so Dositheus was put over his head into the chief place, an arrangement in which Simon on his return thought it prudent to acquiesce. Origen, who was acquainted with the Recognitions, probably had in his mind the story of the 30 disciples of Dositheus, when he says (contra Celsum, vi. 11) that he doubts whether there were then 30 Dositheans in the world (ib. i. 57) or 30 Simonians. Recognitions and Homilies agree that Simon after his enrolment among the disciples of Dositheus, by his disparagement among his fellow-disciples of their master's pretensions, provoked Dositheus to smite him with a staff, which through Simon's magical art passed through his body as if it had been smoke. Dositheus in amazement thereat, and conscious that he himself was not the Standing one as he pretended to be, inquired if Simon claimed that dignity for himself, and, being answered in the affirmative, resigned his chief place to him and became his worshipper. Soon after he died. Elsewhere (i. 54) the Recognitions represent Dositheus as the founder of the sect of the Sadducees, a sect which, according to their account, had its commencement only in the days of John the Baptist.

Next in order of the early witnesses to the activity of Dositheus is Hippolytus, who, as we learn from Photius (Cod. 121), commenced his shorter treatise on heresies with a section on the Dositheans. We gather the contents of this treatise from Epiphanius (Haer. 13), Philaster (4), and Pseudo-Tertullian, and the opening sentence of the latter, which relates to the Dositheans, is almost exactly reproduced by St. Jerome (adv. Luciferianos, iv. 304). The first section of the work of Hippolytus apparently contained a brief notice of pre-Christian sects, the foremost place being given to the Dositheans. Hippolytus seems to have adopted the account of the Recognitions as to the origin of the sect of the Sadducees, and to have also charged Dositheus with rejecting the inspiration of the prophets. A statement that Dositheus was a Jew by birth was understood by Epiphanius to mean that he had deserted from the Jews to the Samaritans, a change which Epiphanies attributes to disappointed ambition. Origen mentions Dositheus in several places (cont. Celsum u.s., tract 27 in Matt. vol. iii. 851; in Luc. iii. 962; in Johann. iv. vol. iv. p. 237; de Princ. iv. 1-17); but only in the last two passages makes any statement which clearly shews that he had sources of information independent of the Clementine Recognitions; viz. in the commentary on John he speaks of books ascribed to Dositheus as being then current among his disciples, and of their belief that their master had not really died; and in de Princ. he asserts that Dositheus expounded Exod. xvi. 29 so as to teach that persons were bound to remain to the end of the sabbath as they found themselves at the beginning of it; if sitting, sitting to the end; if lying, lying. Epiphanius, who may have read Dosithean books, adds, from his personal investigations to the details which he found in Hippolytus. He describes the sect as still existing, observing the Sabbath, circumcision, and other Jewish ordinances, abstaining from animal food, and many of them from sexual intercourse either altogether, or at least after having had children; but the reading here is uncertain. They are said to have admitted the resurrection of the body, the denial of which is represented as an addition made by