fixion. The language of 2 Peter iii. 5-9, relative to the creation and the present government of the world, through the long-suffering of the Creator, might well have in view some such doctrine as this. The accusation, also, of distorting the Scriptures of the O.T. (iii. 16) would also be explained, as also the statement in Jude 4 and 2 Peter ii. 1 about the heretics’ denial of Christ. It is probable that these views were common to the Nicolaitans along with other early Gnostic sects, such as the followers of Simon Magus (cf. Mayor, op. cit., pp. clxxviii. ff.). :
On the intellectual side, Gnosticism originated in a compromise with Greek thought, and an attempt to adapt the Christian teaching to the current philosophy. It is probable that, on the side of con- duct, the immoralities that are so vividly denounced in Jude and 2 Peter were due to a similar compromise with the customs and ideas of the Graeco-Roman society of the day. The Nicolaitan teaching, as described in Rev. ii., was “ evidently an attempt to effect a reason- able compromise with the established usages of Graco- Roman society, and to retain as many as possible of those usages in the Christian system of life. It affected most of all the educated and cultured classes in the Church, those who had most temptation to retain as much as possible of the established social ideas and customs of the Grzeco-Roman world, and who by their more elaborate educa- tion had been most fitted to take a somewhat artificial view of life, and to reconcile contradictory principles in practical conduct through subtle philosophical reasoning” (Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches, pp. 337 ff.).
It had evidently become the custom in the Early Church to use the most unsparing language in denouncing these Gnostic errors. Both in Revelation and in Jude, the language is violent, and 2 Peter deals with the false teachers in the same temper. This may render it difficult, at the present day, to understand the exact theoretic position of a sect like the Nicolaitans, and it is a well-known fact that certain philosophic positions in religion, adopted and advocated by men who are themselves of blameless life, may really lead in the case of weaker followers to great moral laxity. If we consider the picture of Greco-Roman society drawn by St Paul in Romans i., it is not to be wondered at that these heresies, which led to such moral compromises, should be vigorously denounced by the Christian teacher. Nothing else “could have saved the infant Church from melting away into one of those vague and ineffective schools of philo- sophic ethics. . . . An easy-going Christianity could never have Survived ; it could not have conquered and trained the world; only
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