I have heard two different descriptions - one that is popular is based on the meaning of two Greek words which together give the meaning of "conquering the laity" or "stepping on the common people" - in other words, a division of "clergy and laity" - but gosh, at this early date, as early as 66 as late as 96 even - I do not feel that such a "priest vs layman" dichotomy had developed til way later than either date for writing of Revelation.
Another theory I have heard is that it was because of a wayward deacon named Nicholas who taught that because Christianity was spiritual, it did not matter what THE PHYSICAL BODY did - opening up a lot of sexual immorality, wife-swapping or what have you.
I thought about putting this in CHRISTIAN HISTORY forum, but since it deals with the book of Revelation, I figure that all of us end-of-the-world know-it-alls can figure this out - so do yall think Nicolaitians were either of these two theories or sumpn else entirely?
The oldest commentary on this that I know about is the following:
"John, the disciple of the Lord, preaches this faith, and seeks, by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men, and a long time previously by those termed
Nicolaitans, who are an offset of that “knowledge” falsely so called, that he might confound them, and persuade them that there is but one God, who made all things by His Word; and not, as they allege, that the Creator was one, but the Father of the Lord another; and that the Son of the Creator was, forsooth, one, but the Christ from above another, who also continued impassible, descending upon Jesus, the Son of the Creator, and flew back again into His Pleroma; and that Monogenes was the beginning, but Logos was the true son of Monogenes; and that this creation to which we belong was not made by the primary God, but by some power lying far below Him, and shut off from communion with the things invisible and ineffable." (Against Heresies," by Irenaeus, book 3, chapter 11, section 1.) This is thought to have been published between the years 186 and 188 A.D.
The next oldest is the following:
"The flesh is not, according to Marcion, immersed in the water of the sacrament, unless it be in virginity, widowhood, or celibacy, or has purchased by divorce a title to baptism, as if even generative impotents did not all receive their flesh from nuptial union. Now, such a scheme as this must no doubt involve the proscription of marriage. Let us see, then, whether it be a just one: not as if we aimed at destroying the happiness of sanctity, as do certain Nicolaitans in their maintenance of lust and luxury, but as those who have come to the knowledge of sanctity, and pursue it and prefer it, without detriment, however, to marriage; not as if we superseded a bad thing by a good, but only a good thing by a better." (This is the beginning of the twenty-ninth chapter of the first of Tertullian's fove books against Maricon, and is thought to have been written around the year 208 A.D.)
Tertllian further wrote:
"A brother heretic emerged in Nicolaus. He was one of the seven deacons who were appointed in the Acts of the Apostles. He affirms that Darkness was seized with a concupiscence—and, indeed, a foul and obscene one—after Light: out of this permixture it is a shame to say what fetid and unclean (combinations arose). The rest (of his tenets), too, are obscene. For he tells of certain ¦ons, sons of turpitude, and of conjunctions of execrable and obscene embraces and per-mixtures, and certain yet baser outcomes of these. He teaches that there were born, moreover, dµmons, and gods, and spirits seven, and other things sufficiently sacrilegious. alike and foul, which we blush to recount, and at once pass them by. Enough it is for us that this heresy of the Nicolaitans has been condemned by the Apocalypse of the Lord with the weightiest authority attaching to a sentence, in saying 'Because this thou holdest, thou hatest the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which I too hate.'" (This is the end of chapter 1 of his work titled "Against all Heresies.)
Around a hundred years or so later, Eusebius wrote:
"Chapter XXIX.—
Nicolaus and the Sect named after him.
1. At this time the so-called sect of the Nicolaitans made its appearance and lasted for a very short time. Mention is made of it in the Apocalypse of John. They boasted that the author of their sect was Nicolaus, one of the deacons who, with Stephen, were appointed by the apostles for the purpose of ministering to the poor. Clement of Alexandria, in the third book of his Stromata, relates the following things concerning him.
2. “They say that he had a beautiful wife, and after the ascension of the Saviour, being accused by the apostles of jealousy, he led her into their midst and gave permission to any one that wished to marry her. For they say that this was in accord with that saying of his, that one ought to abuse the flesh. And those that have followed his heresy, imitating blindly and foolishly that which was done and said, commit fornication without shame.
3. But I understand that Nicolaus had to do with no other woman than her to whom he was married, and that, so far as his children are concerned, his daughters continued in a state of virginity until old age, and his son remained uncorrupt. If this is so, when he brought his wife, whom he jealously loved, into the midst of the apostles, he was evidently renouncing his passion; and when he used the expression, ‘to abuse the flesh,’ he was inculcating self-control in the face of those pleasures that are eagerly pursued. For I suppose that, in accordance with the command of the Saviour, he did not wish to serve two masters, pleasure and the Lord." (Church History," by Eusebius, Book 3, chapter 289, sections 1-3.)
Long after that, Jerome wrote, probably in the early fifth century:
"Not all bishops are bishops indeed. You consider Peter; mark Judas as well. You notice Stephen; look also on Nicolas, sentenced in the Apocalypse by the Lord’s own lips, whose shameful imaginations gave rise to the heresy of the Nicolaitans. 'Let a man examine himself and so let him come.'" (Letters of Jerome, letter 14, section 9)