....for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived....But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments.....Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me.
Revelation 18:23/Isaiah 47:9,10
"Schlegel shows how naturally this homage paid to the Druids came to be transferred to the bishops of the church. He says:
"That these pagan nations had been accustomed to treat their
idolatrous priests with an extraordinary reverence, is a fact well known. When they became Christians, they supposed they might show the same respect to the Christian priests. Of course they honored their bishops and clergy as they had before honored their Druids; and this reverence disposed them to bear patiently with their vices. Every Druid was accounted a very great character, and was feared by every one; but the chief Druid was actually worshiped. When these people became Christians, they supposed that the Bishop of Rome was such a Chief Druid, and that he must be honored accordingly. And this was one cause why the Roman Pontiff obtained in process of time such an ascendancy in the Western countries. The patriarch of Constantinople rose indeed to a great elevation; but he never attained the high rank and authority of the Roman patriarch. The reason was that the people of the East had not the same ideas of the dignity of Chief Priest as the people of the West had."
"That these pagan nations had been accustomed to treat their
When the reader remembers that heathen philosophy had taken the 
place of the Bible, and that great numbers of learned heathen had been led to accept this paganized Christianity, thinking, as was true, that it was only another form of paganism, and that they did not think it necessary to change any of heir practices and principles, it will not be difficult to see how the Papacy became so firmly established.
But the “Fathers” of the church had prepared the way for this long before. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, had written:
"The church is founded upon the bishops, and every act of the church is controlled by the same rulers."
And yet again he made the following blasphemous claim, putting the bishops on a level with God:
"But deacons ought to remember that the Lord chose apostles, that
But if we may dare anything against God who makes bishops, deacons may also dare anything against us by whom they are made."
But let it not be thought that the fault lay wholly with the bishops. They grasped for power, but they could not have gained the power that they did, if the people had not given it to them.
If the people had held fast to the Bible, no ambitious priests could ever have brought paganism into the church.
E.J. Waggoner