Reading the early chapters of Revelation, have you ever wondered who, exactly, the Nicolaitans were? So have a lot of other people. There’s not really an answer in the Bible itself.
Some people will try to tell you that it refers to a kind of clericalism. This is based entirely on etymology, dissecting the parts of the word. The theory goes that “Nicolaitans” comes from two Greek words: nikao, “to conquer,” and laos, “the people.” By this reasoning, the Nicolaitans aspired to be a clerical ruling class in the church seeking to control and subdue the people.
Among those who accept this definition, there’s quite a range of application. Some folks will use it to condemn Roman Catholic clericalism, but be fine with Baptist practice. At the other extreme, some folks will use it to condemn any hierarchy in the church at all. (They have to do some really fancy dancing in passages that talk about obeying your church authorities!) Of course, there’s a range of options in between, with various…let’s say interesting…embroideries on the theme. Some while ago, I encountered a guy who, in all seriousness, discouraged us from having a pastor, lest we fall into Nicolaitanism, and then volunteered to serve as our bishop so that we would have a “proper covering!” In practice, the working definition of Nicolaitanism is often “anybody who has more authority than I do.”
But this is all nonsense. Trying to reconstruct a whole belief system based only on the etymology of the group name is the equivalent of some archaeologist 2000 years hence claiming that the Rotary Club believed in reincarnation, based entirely on their name. It’s just not good evidence. For all we know, it was a cult of personality following a guy named Nicolas, with totally different heretical practices. There simply is no evidence that the Nicolaitans were clericalist, by whatever definition.
The best evidence we have is from the memory of the very early church. There turn out to be some records on this, and they don’t all agree with one another; that’s history for you. If you believe that George Washington, Ferdinand Magellan, and Julius Caesar were real people, this kind of evidence is why. Discernment and sober-mindedness are very much required, but this is a kind of evidence that honest people can work with. If you’d like to explore what our forbears remembered and wrote down, Dan Jennings was kind enough to collect a bunch of the early church references to the Nicolaitans. Enjoy.
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