Finally, the Balaam-like false teachers are identified as Nicolaitans, who were mentioned in the message to the Ephesians as a group whose practices should be hated (Rev 2,6). Here, the emphasis is on their teaching alone. In the next message, their teachings and practices are alluded to (see n. 69). Identified by a specific teaching of their own, these are clearly not just secularized Christians willing to compromise with the prevailing pagan society and, in that way, make life easier for themselves. Writing nearly a century later, Irenaeus considers them to be a Gnostic sect (Adv. Haer. 1.26,3; 3.11,1), a view which is upheld by most modern scholars, even though there is no mention of their name, nor of ‘eating idol-sacrifices and fornication’ in any of the known Gnostic sources from that time. Nevertheless, it is known that docetic-Gnostic ideas were circulating widely in the Mediterranean region at the time and had been confronted by other Church leaders (1Cor 8–11; Col 1–2; 1Jn 2,22; 4,2). Furthermore, several early Church Fathers identify Gnostics in precisely the same terms, as those who ‘eat meat sacrificed to idols’ and who attend ‘every festival celebrated in honour of idols’, without worrying whether these acts may jeopardize their final salvation (Irenaeus Adv. Haer. 1.6; Justin Dialogues 35; Eusebius Hist. Ecc. 4.7). Some even postulated that the Nicolaitans were followers of Nicolaus of Antioch, one of the seven deacons selected to serve the needs of the earliest Jerusalem Church (Acts 6,1-6), but there is little evidence for this. Whether by coincidence or not, the name Nicolaus (‘Victor of the people’) is a plausible Greek rendering of the Hebrew Balaam (‘Lord of the people’), raising the possibility that this is not an actual name, but rather a symbolical name derived from that OT pagan prophet.