For the mystery of lawlessness already works. Only there is one who restrains now, until he is taken out of the way.
(4) This was kept in check as long as Rome was the seat of the imperial power. Had that power remained there, it would have been impossible for the Roman Bishop ever to have obtained the civil and ecclesiastical eminence which he ultimately did. Rome could not have had two heads, both claiming and exercising supreme power; and there never could have been a “revelation of the man of sin.”