Dositheos probably lived in the first century CE. According to Pseudo-Tertullian, he was the first to deny the Prophets, a heresy that 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.