The Roman Catholic Church and the Roman Empire

And if a man consider the original of this great ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily perceive that the Papacy is no other than the “ghost” of the deceased “Roman empire,” sitting crowned upon the grave thereof. For so did the Papacy start up on a sudden out of the ruins of that heathen power.

Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan or The Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil, 2nd Ed, London: George Routledge and Sons, 1886, p. 313.