Editing Nicolaism (section)

=== Epiphanius ===
[[Epiphanius of Salamis|Epiphanius]] relates some details of the life of Nicolas the deacon, and describes him as gradually sinking into the grossest impurity, and becoming the originator of the Nicolaitans and other libertine Gnostic sects:
{{blockquote|[Nicolas] had an attractive wife, and had refrained from intercourse as though in imitation of those whom he saw to be devoted to God. He endured this for a while but in the end could not bear to control his incontinence.... But because he was ashamed of his defeat and suspected that he had been found out, he ventured to say, "Unless one copulates every day, he cannot have eternal life."<ref>{{cite book |last=Williams |first=Frank |title=The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis |year=1987 |publisher=E.J. Brill |location=Leiden; New York; København; Köln |volume=Book I (Sects 1-46) |page=77}}</ref>|Epiphanius, ''[[Panarion]]'', xxv. 1}}

[[Hippolytus of Rome]] shared the opinion that Nicolas became a heresiarch (in ''[[Refutation of All Heresies]]'' vii. 24).<ref name="Blunt">{{cite book |title=Dictionary of Sects, Heresies, Ecclesiastical Parties, and Schools of Religious Thought |publisher=Rivingtons |year=1874 |editor=John Henry Blunt M.A., F.S.A. |location=London}}</ref><ref>Stephen Gobar, Photii ''Biblioth''. §232, p. 291, ed. 1824; ''[[Philosophumena]]'', bk. vii. §36.</ref>