The Abomination of Desolation - St. Marys Coptic Orthodox Church

62
THE UNHOLY TRINITY
though a wonderful manner. It is commonly questioned whether these
works are called "signs and lying wonders" because he is to deceive men's
senses by false appearances, or because the things he does, though they
be true prodigies, shall be a lie to those who shall believe that such things
could be done only by God, being ignorant of the devil's power, and
especially of such unexampled power as he shall then for the first time
put forth. For when he fell from heaven as fire, and at a stroke swept
away from the holy Job his numerous household and his vast flocks, and
then as a whirlwind rushed upon and smote the house and killed his
children, these were not deceitful appearances, and yet they were the
works of Satan to whom God had given this power. 1
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem has another point of view:
And who is this, and from what sort of working? Interpret to us, O Paul.
Whose coming, he says, is after the working of Satan, with all power and
signs and lying wonders; implying, that Satan has used him as an
instrument, working in his own person through him; for knowing that his
judgment shall now no longer have respite, he wages war no more by his
ministers, as is his wont, but henceforth by himself more openly. And
with all signs and lying wonders; for the father of falsehood will make a
show of the works of falsehood, that the multitudes may think that they
see a dead man raised, who is not raised, and lame men walking, and
blind men seeing, when the cure has not been wrought. 2
He will work signs and terrible wonders, false wonders and not true, in
order to deceive his impious equals. For if it were possible, he would
seduce even the elect from the love of Christ .... Under the eye of the
spectators he will remove mountains from their places, he will walk on
the sea with dry feet, he will bring down fire from heaven, he will turn the
day into darkness and the night into day, he will turn the sun about
wheresoever he pleases; and, in short, in presence of those who behold
him, he will show all the elements of earth and sea to be subject to him
in the power of his specious manifestation .... what machinations and
deceits and delusions will he not bring into play, with the purpose of
seducing all men, and leading them off from the way of truth, and from
1 Augustine of Hippo: City of God
2 St. Cyril of Jerusalem: Catechetical Lectures, Lecture XV