TTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~},(83) "some of them refrain from marital relations after having
lived together, others preserve their virginity." Whether this emendation
is right or not, it is clear that Epiphanius describes his Dositheans as a
kind of Encratite ascetics, while the prohibition of polygamy--whether
contemporaneous or consecutive--by our sect has a totally different ground;
of asceticism there is, indeed, no symptom in its ordinances.

Dr. Schechter thinks that the statement of Epiphanius quoted above that
the Dositheans "abstain from eating living creatures" "may have some
connection with the law in our text on p. 12, l. 11, which may perhaps be
understood to imply that the sect forbade honey, regarding it as _'eber
min hahai_ (a limb cut off from a living animal), which would agree with
the testimony of Abul-Fath that they forbade the eating of eggs, except
those which were found in a slaughtered fowl." {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PSI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} does not
mean "abstain from eating living creatures," but "abstain from animal
food,"(84) while our sect certainly did not include vegetarianism among
its eccentricities, any more than the depreciation of marriage.

Several authors describe the Dositheans as extravagant sabbatarians.
Origen reports that their rule was, that in whatever place and in whatever
posture the Sabbath found a man, there and thus he was to remain till its
end. Abul-Fath gives a longer account of their Sabbath laws, which are
much stricter than those of our texts. It was forbidden, for example, to
feed domestic animals or give them drink on the Sabbath, they were to be
provided on Friday with enough provender and water to last them through
the Sabbath. Extreme sabbatarianism is, however, a sectarian propensity
which does not have to be borrowed.

Dr. Schechter quotes Epiphanius further as saying that the Dositheans
"have no intercourse