Nicolaus and the Nicolaitans

In this period, too, the so-called heresy of the Nicolaitans arose and lasted a very short time; the Revelation of John mentions it. They boasted that their founder was Nicolaus, one of the deacons with Stephen who were appointed by the apostles to serve the needy. Clement of Alexandria, in the third book of his Miscellanies, tells the following about him, word for word: [a]

“They say that this man had a beautiful wife. After the Savior was taken up, the apostles reproached him for jealousy, and he brought his wife out into their midst and gave leave to anyone who wished to marry her. For they say this action fitted that saying of his, that one ought to abuse the flesh. And those who follow his heresy, imitating what was done and said simply and without examining it, give themselves to sexual immorality without restraint. [c] But I learn that Nicolaus had to do with no woman other than the one he married, and that of his children the daughters grew old as virgins and his son remained chaste. If so, then bringing his wife, whom he loved jealously, out into the midst of the apostles was a casting off of passion; and it was self-control in the face of pleasures eagerly pursued that taught him to say, ‘abuse the flesh.’ For, I suppose, he did not wish, in keeping with the Savior’s command, to serve two masters, pleasure and the Lord. [d] They say, too, that Matthias taught the same way: that we must fight the flesh and abuse it, giving it nothing for the sake of pleasure, but make the soul grow through faith and knowledge.” Let this be enough about those who tried, in the times we are describing, to cheat the truth, and who were snuffed out entirely in less time than it takes to tell it. [e]