2 Peter 2:2

2. Their pernicious ways Most of the oldest and best authorities read their licentiousness. They carried their doctrine into practice; and the prediction that many would follow their example of dissoluteness, and think it purity, was abundantly fulfilled. Irenaeus says, that Simon Magus taught that “they who believed in him were free to live as they pleased, and that men would be saved by his grace, and not according to their works; and that nothing is good by nature, but only by institution. And therefore his votaries live in lasciviousness.” The immoral conduct of these Christian professors inevitably caused Christianity to be evil spoken of. Clemens Alexandrinus gives as a reason for his writing, the infamy brought upon the Christian name by the shameless lives of false teachers, and the necessity of disabusing the public mind.