Verse 13: He performed visional pseudo-signs, which were not actual, in order to deceive, such as Jesus foretold (Matthew 24:24) would precede the destruction of Jerusalem; and such as Paul described (2 Thessalonians 2:3-9) as characteristic of the pretensions of “ the man of sin and son of perdition.” The wonders were merely the magical machinations of the Roman emperor-beast to deceive. Josephus relates that two representatives of Nero, by the names of Albinus and Gessius Florus, in this very period, were sent into the land, and being notorious for wickedness they made pompous ostentations before the people. (Antiquities, Book XX, II, I) These are facts recorded by the eye-witness historian on the scene of things; and there could be no more fitting fulfillment of the two horns of this beast.