Dositheos (occasionally also known as Nathanael, both meaning "gift of God") was a Samaritan religious leader of Arab origins. He was the founder of a Samaritan sect often assumed to be Gnostic in nature, and is reputed to have known John the Baptist, and been either a teacher or a rival of Simon Magus. Christian and Jewish sources Dositheos probably lived in the first century CE. According to Pseudo-Tertullian, he was the first to deny the Nevi'im (Prophets), which gave rise to the party of the Sadducees. Jerome gives the same account. Hippolytus begins his enumeration of the 32 heresies by mentioning Dositheos; hence the sect is made to appear older than the Sadducees, and on the 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 Mount Gerizim. The Samaritan chronicles (the Book of Joshua and Abu al-Fath's Annales) recount a similar discussion between Zerubbabel and Sanballat. Josephus stated that the Samaritans had two advocates, he doubtless meant the two apostles Dositheus and Sabbæus, whose doctrine, including the sanctity of Mount 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 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