2 Thessalonians 2:7

For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work: only there is one that restraineth now, until he be taken out of the way.

In the Greek, the restraining power is spoken of, both as "he" and as "it," as when a man might speak of the law as "it," and of the enforcer of it as "he." Of course the Roman government was the principal authority of the age in which Paul wrote; and, as long as there was a strong central government in Rome, the spiritual empire of the papists was unable fully to develop. It was with the breakdown of law and order, in the coming of the vandals and hordes of barbarians, that the man of sin saw his opportunity and took it. There ensued the Holy Roman Empire, controlled absolutely by Romanists.