Balaam
: - taught Balak to place a stumbling block before the Israelites so they would eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality. (Revelation 2:14)
Docetism
: - the doctrine that Christ’s body was only a seeming one
Ebionism
: - the doctrine that Christ was only a man
Libertine or Libertinism
: - a person questioning and challenging most moral principles, such as responsibility or sexual restraints, and will often declare these traits as unnecessary or undesirable.
: - one who ignores, or even spurns, accepted morals and forms of behavior observed by the larger society.
Menander
: - Claimed himself to be a Savior “sent from above for the salvation of men from invisible aeons.”
: - he taught “no one could gain mastery over the world-creating angels themselves unless he had first gone through the magical discipline imparted by him and had received baptism from him.”
: - “Those deemed worthy of this would partake in the present life of perpetual immortality, and would never die, but would remain here forever, and without growing old become immortal;” thus rejecting the doctrine of resurrection
Montanism
: - believed their prophecies superseded and fulfilled doctrines taught by the Apostles
: - encouraged “ecstatic” prophesying
: - believed Christians who fell from grace could not be redeemed
: - did not speak as “messengers of God” but rather described themselves as “possessed by God, and spoke in his person,” indicating the “prophet” was incapable of resisting. i.e. “I am the Father, the Word, and the Paraclete,” said Montanus.
Nicolaitans
: - consensus seems to be they compromised the Gospel with pagan rituals, i.e. eating meat sacrificed to idols, and sexual immorality.
: - according to Irenaeus, they lived in unrestrained indulgence; and taught that it is a matter of indifference to practice adultery, and to eat things sacrificed to idols.