Revelation 2:24

To know “the depths” of the divine being and counsel was a characteristic claim of the Ophites and the later Gnostics; cf. Iren. adv. Haer. ii. 22, 1 (qui profunda bythi adinuenisse se dicunt; cf. 3), and Tertullian's sarcastic description (adv. Vàlent. 1), “Eleusinia Ualentiniana fecerunt lenocinia. sancta silentio magno, sola taciturnitate coelestia. Si bona fide quaeris, concreto uultu, suspenso supercilio Altum est aiunt.” “The depth of knowledge” was a phrase of Herakleitus, the famous Ephesian philosopher, and in the creed of the Dukhobortsui, a sect in modern Russia, the Holy Spirit is Depth, the Father being Height and the Son Breadth. Since ὡς λέγουσιν refers to the errorists themselves, the quoted phrase about “knowing the depths of Satan” may (1.) contain an indignant and sarcastic retort; “depths of Satan,” not “God,” as they boast (τοῦς. being substituted for τοῦ θεοῦ); such teaching and principles are simply infernal. Or (2.) as is more probable the words may voice the actual claim of the errorists, who considered that some accommodation to pagan practices gave them a necessary acquaintance with the meaning of evil (so e.g., Spitta, Pfleiderer, Zahn, Jülicher, Bousset). Their higher standing gave them immunity from any risks. They could fathom securely what the immature orthodox called immorality. Devil-study, or even devil-worship (Revelation 13:4 is quite different) was not uncommon in some of the Gnostic sects throughout Asia Minor, e.g., the Cainites, the Naassenes, and the Ophites (the earliest Gnostics, φάσκοντες μόνοι τὰ βάθη γινώσκειν, Hipp. adv. Haer. Revelation 2:6). The idea was that as the principle of evil would ultimately be redeemed, it might be used meantime for the advantage of the initiated. Compare Mansel's Gnostic Heresies, pp. 73, 96, 105. In En. lxv. 6 the unrighteous are punished for their acquaintance with “all the secrets of the angels and all the violence of the Satans and all their hidden power and all the power of those that practise sorcery, and the power of witchcraft.” The influence of a movement like Gnosticism, whose motto was eritis sicut deus scientes bonum et malum, gave wide opportunities to immorality, in its more popular applications. It produced the same sort of union between subtlety and sensualism which can sometimes be traced within Hinduism. In contrast to this unwholesome temper of speculation, the prophet substitutes for speculative flights the obedience of the normal Christian praxis (cf. Parad. Lost, viii. 170 197, xii. 561 589), with a plain allusion to the Jerusalem concordat of the early church which is recommended tacitly as a safe, wise rule of conduct. In the case of the βαθέα τοῦ σατανᾶ, ignorance is bliss. John is totally unsympathetic to the local liberals. He does not combat the theoretical principles at the root of their movement. Like the prophets who wrote Jude and 2 Peter, he attacks instead of arguing, quite content to judge it by its moral fruits of libertinism. He bitterly declares that such occasional results are the deliberate object of the party. The strange collocation of this error with the habit of partaking of sacrificial food is probably due to the prophet's stern conviction that the latter, with its friendly and liberal attitude to pagan customs, fostered the former, in the case of people who took an ultra-spiritual view of Paul's principle of Christian freedom.