Nicolaitans

Nicolaitans, an immoral sect mentioned in Rev. ii. 6, 15, and sometimes, but apparently on very feeble grounds, connected with Nicolas the proselyte of Antioch, mentioned in Acts, vi. 5. Indeed the name seems rather to be symbolic than historical, the Greek Nikolaos being an equivalent to the Hebrew Balaam. In this sense the passage in the Apocalypse harmonises closely with what is said of the followers of Balaam in Jude and 2 Peter, and Rev. ii. 15 need not be taken as referring to a different class from verse 14. Their error was a licentiousness which they brought into the Christian church from the heathen world, and the subtler wickedness of defending this as supported by a doctrine and a prophetic illumination (2 Pet. ii. 1). There is no satisfactory evidence of the existence of such a sect after the time of John; still Irenæus mentions the Nicolaitans as a sect of Gnostics of the Ophite class, and in this he is followed by Hippolytus.