2 Thessalonians 2:8

ὅν, κ. τ. λ., his career is short and tragic. The apparition (cf. 1 Timothy 6:14, etc., Thieme, Die Inschriften von Magnesia, 34 f.) of Jesus heralds his overthrow. ἐπιφανείᾳ = sudden appearance of a deity at some crisis (cf. Diod., Sicul., i. 25), as the god in 2Ma 2:21; 2Ma 3:24, etc. “In hieratic inscriptions the appearing of the god in visible form to men is commonly expressed by the same word” (Ramsay, Exp. Ti., x. 208). This passage, with its fierce messianic anticipation of the adversary's doom interrupts the description of his mission which is resumed (in 2 Thessalonians 2:9) with an account of the inspiration (κατὰ), method (ἐν) and results (2 Thessalonians 2:10), of this evil advent. Galen (de facult. nat., 1. 2, 4 5) physiologically defines ἐνέργεια as the process of activity whose product is ἔργον. The impulse to ἐνέργεια is δύναμις. The δύναμις of this supernatural delusion is specially manifested in signs and wonders. The power of working miracles in order to deceive people (2 Thessalonians 2:11) was an accepted trait in the Jewish and early Christian ideas of such eschatological opponents of God (cf. on Revelation 13:13, and Friedländer's Geschichte d. jüd. Apolog., 493 f.).