“[Satan] failed to get Jesus, but he came again, to get Jesus’ church. He came when, through the power of the new revolutionary idea, the Church had won a position of tremendous power in the decaying Roman Empire; and the subtle worm assumed the guise of no less a person than the Emperor himself, suggesting that he should become a convert to the new faith, so that the Church and he might work together for the greater glory of God. The bishops and fathers of the Church, ambitious for their organization, fell for this scheme, and Satan went off laughing to himself. He had got everything he had asked from Jesus three hundred years before; he had got the world’s greatest religion.”
–Upton Sinclair
Quote Number: 667
Source: Sinclair, Upton. The Profits of Religion : An Essay in Economic Interpretation. 1918. Online from another source here.
Source Notes:
1000 Quotes Project 