further proof that the Dositheans were their spiritual descendants. The statement that the festivals were abolished, probably means that the Dositheans celebrated them on other days than the Jews; but as, according to a trustworthy statement of Epiphanius, the Dositheans celebrated the festivals together with the Pharisaic Jews, an approximation may well be assumed toward the Karaites, a sect with which the Samaritans had much in common in later times. The determination of the months by means of the testimony of witnesses may also have been a Karaite custom although that practise may go back to a time before the opposite view of the Pharisees existed. Under the Abbasid khalifs the Samaritans persecuted the Dositheans, although they themselves had to suffer much. Under Ibrahim (218–227 of the Hijrah) the synagogue of the Samaritans and Dositheans at Nablus was burned by heretics, but it was subsequently rebuilt. Yusuf ibn Dasi, governor of Palestine, entirely forbade the worship of the Dositheans; and the sect may in consequence have been absorbed by the Samaritans. See also Mandaeans References Jewish Encyclopedia Bibliography D. Oppenheim, in Berliner's Magazin, i. 68; Goldberg, in Ha-Maggid, xii. 62; S. Krauss. Lehnwörter, ii. 192; Lagarde, Mittheilungen, iv. 135; John William Nutt. Fragments of a Samaritan Targum, pp. 47–52, London, 1874; A. Hilgenfeld. Ketzergesh des. Urchristenthums, p. 160. Leipzig, 1884; E. Renan, Les Origines du Christianisme, 2d ed., v. 452; Herzfeld, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, ii. 606; the Arabic sources in Silvester de Sacy, Chrestomathie Arabe, i. 333; Payne Smith, Thesarus Syriacus, col. 845; Hamburger, R. B. T. ii. 1069; S. Krauss, in Rev. Etudes Juives, xlii. 27–42; Büchler. ib. 220–231, who does not refer the Midrash passages to Dositheus. Compare also Hauck's Real-Encyc. pp. 157, 159-160 Gnostics 1st-century Romans 1st-century Arabs Samaritan culture and history