Babel, or Babylon, was built by Nimrod (Genesis 10:8–10). It was the seat of the first great apostasy. Here the Babylonian cult was invented, a system claiming to possess the highest wisdom and to reveal the divinest secrets. Before a member could be initiated, he had to confess to the priest. The priest then had him in his power. This is the secret of the power of the priests of the Roman Catholic Church today.
Once admitted into this order, men were no longer Babylonians, Assyrians, or Egyptians, but members of a mystical brotherhood over whom was placed a pontiff or high priest whose word was law. The city of Babylon continued to be the seat of Satan until the fall of the Babylonian and Medo-Persian empires, when he shifted his capital to Pergamos in Asia Minor, where it was in John’s day (Revelation 2:12–13).