Nicholaitans

Acts 6:5 The statement found approval with the whole congregation; and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch.

Revelation 2  ‘I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; 3 and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 5 Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent. 6 Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.’


Revelation 2  ‘I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is; and you hold fast My name, and did not deny My faith even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. 14 But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality. 15 So you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16 Therefore repent; or else I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of My mouth. 17 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.’

The letter to the church at Pergamum specifically charged them with having seduced people into eating meat offered to idols and into acts of fornication. The decree of the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:28, 29) had laid down also two specific conditions upon which Gentiles were to be admitted into Christian fellowship: they were to abstain from things offered to idols and from fornication. These were the very regulations which the Nicolaitans violated.


They were a people who used Christian liberty as an occasion for the flesh, against such Paul warned (Gal 5:13). The enticement to such a course of action was the pagan society in which Christians lived where eating meat offered to idols was common. Sex relations outside marriage were completely acceptable in such a society. The Nicolaitans attempted to establish a compromise with the pagan society of the Graeco-Roman world that surrounded them. The people most susceptible to such teaching were, no doubt, the upper classes who stood to lose the most by a separation from the culture to which they had belonged before conversion.

It may be that the doctrine of the Nicolaitans was dualistic. They prob. reasoned that the human body was evil anyway and only the spirit was good. A Christian, therefore, could do whatever he desired with his body because it had no importance. The spirit, on the other hand, was the recipient of grace which meant that grace and forgiveness were his no matter what he did. They were those ready to compromise with the world. They were judged by the author of Revelation to be most dangerous because the result of their teaching would have conformed Christianity to the world rather than have Christianity change the world. Eusebius indicated that this sect did not last very long, and in all probability the only knowledge of their teaching that is possible will be found in the slight references to them in Revelation- Encyclopedia of the Bible, Biblegateway

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"From the letters to Ephesus and the Pergamum it would be inferred
that the Nicolaitans were evil and offensive people only because they ate
food offered to idols and committed fornication; in other words, because
they were shamelessly transgressing the decree of the apostles (Acts
15:28 f.)., But it is a striking fact that John here so definitely speaks of
a teaching. It is quite clear from the letter to Thyatira that the Nicolaitans were gnostics, for the words "we know the deep things of Satan"2
in Rev. 2:24 show that they had definitely formulated their Gnosis, and
that it was antinomian and even libertine in character."

 "The sect of the Nicolaitans had its apostles' and prophets like the great church. The Apostles were the missionaries. In Ephesus the members of the church had experienced their influence and had driven them out with scorn and shame. In Thyatira a certain woman, who seems to have been particularly dangerous, is attacked as a prophetess.2 John had already given her one warning and granted her time for repentance. Now he threatens her and her followers with judgment of death if they persist in their sinful ways.3 5. This is all the information concerning the Nicolaitans which the Apocalypse of John furnishes. From the writings of the church fathers, however, we gain some further knowledge: (a) Irenaeus of Asia Minor describes them as "a branch of the movement falsely called 'gnosis"' (iii. i i. ), and regards them as forerunners of Cerinthus. This he did not learn from the Apocalypse, but from tradition. Probably he knew more about them and their teaching than he felt it necessary to tell. That they were still existing in his time is implied in i. 26. 3 (cf. also Clement of Alexandria). b) Tertullian also knew more (on the basis of tradition) than he tells. This is evident from the fact that he classes them with the satanic sect of the Cainites (de Praescr. 33.4 Cf. also Adv. Marc. i. 29; de Pudic. 19). In the epistle of Jude, also, the false teachers are described as going "in the way of Cain." c) The gnostic system of the Nicolaitans, which is referred to in the Apocalypse, in Irenaeus, and in Tertullian, is described in its main features by Hippolytus in the Syntagma.s It was a thoroughly dualistic"

 In his treatise ad Miannaeam Hippolytus says further that the Nicolaitans taught that the resurrection had already taken place in faith and baptism, and that there was no resurrection of the flesh; that they laid the greatest stress upon faith and baptism is shown by their particular type of Christianity.2 From Hippolytus' account we see that he must have had in his possession a good fund of knowledge concerning the Nicolaitans. d) Clement of Alexandria, who gives us information concerning the person of Nicolaus which does not appear elsewhere (see the exposition below), says nothing concerning the teaching of the Nicolaitans because the particular connection in which he mentions them gives no occasion to speak of their doctrine (questions of asceticism). However, he does say that these "lascivious goats" justify their wicked actions with a word of their teacher, Nicolaus: "It is proper to abuse the flesh." They no longer existed in his day. e) We have a striking statement from Victorinus of Pettau. He says that the Nicolaitans had taught "that food offered to idols might be exorcized and eaten and that anyone who might be a fornicator might obtain peace on the eighth day." This statement is very untrustworthy because it is an anachronism. Neither a lax person, nor, indeed, any sort of Christian could have made such a statement in the first century. It is suited only to the third century. The confusion may have arisen because in the third century a strict Christian may have compared with the Nicolaitans the lax Catholic party who represented this position.

Decisive testimony is given by Clement of Alexandria, who knows from the tradition of both the Nicolaitans and the church that the Nicolaitans are adherents of the deacon Nicolaus of Jerusalem, for he says in Strom. ii. ii8, after he had spoken of Aristippus: "Such also are those who call themselves followers of Nicolaus and who perversely bring forward a certain maxim of the man, viz., It is necessary to abuse the flesh"; and in Strom. iii. 25 he narrates from Nicolaitan tradition the following story of Nicolaus: "He, they say, having a beautiful wife, and being reproached for jealousy by the apostles after the ascension of the Savior, brought her into their midst and turned her over to anyone who might wish to marry the woman. For they say this act is in conformity with the saying: 'It is necessary to abuse the flesh."' Clement had made inquiry about the matter and was not able to contest the truth of the story, but he continues: "However, I learn indeed that Nicolaus had intercourse with no other woman except the one whom he married, and of her children the daughters lived to old age as virgins and the son remained uncorrupt." Accordingly there can be no doubt of a real relationship between the Nicolaitans and Nicolaus of Jerusalem,' since the sect still existing at the time of Clement of Alexandria asserted this and the opponents of the sect did not deny it, and since, moreover, a tradition concerning the person of Nicolaus of Jerusalem, his family, and a strange and offensive behavior of his was in existence which neither party denied.

- The Journal of Religion https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/480373

Nicolaitans are antinomian with indifference to commands regarding eating prohibited things.