Hardly had the early persecutions [of the Christians] ceased till that falling away set in. Jerome lifts the veil in the fourth century, and disclosed a truly melancholy picture. In vain we look for the humility, the simplicity, and the purity of the early Church. The gold refined in the furnace of ten persecutions is waxing dim. The vine which Paul planted at Rome is being transformed into the vine of Sodom. The pastors of the church are becoming inflamed with the love of riches, and are striving with one another for pre-eminence. Rome daily sees her bishop ride forth in a gilded chariot, drawn by prancing steeds. Her clergy show themselves attired in robes of silk. The members of their flock crowd alternately the church and the theatre, and rush with indecent haste from superstitious rites performed at the tombs of the martyrs to the games and sports of the circus. The “apostacy” has fairly set in. The corruption grows with the current of the centuries. It shapes itself into system, it builds error upon error, and buttresses itself all round with assumptions and falsehoods. The organization in which it enshrines itself necessarily and naturally finds for itself a chief or head. Now comes the Pope and his hierarchy. The “Man of Sin” has appeared.

– J.A. Wylie (from The Papacy is the Antichrist)
– 1808 – 1890