e same place, the works of
Antichrist may be called lying wonders, "either because he will
deceive men's senses by means of phantoms, so that he will not really
do what he will seem to do; or because, if he work real prodigies,
they will lead those into falsehood who believe in him."

Reply Obj. 2: As we have said above (Q. 110, A. 2), corporeal matter
does not obey either good or bad angels at their will, so that demons
be able by their power to transmute matter from one form to another;
but they can employ certain seeds that exist in the elements of the
world, in order to produce these effects, as Augustine says (De Trin.
iii, 8, 9). Therefore it must be admitted that all the transformation
of corporeal things which can be produced by certain natural powers,
to which we must assign the seeds above mentioned, can alike be
produced by the operation of the demons, by the employment of these
seeds; such as the transformation of certain things into serpents or
frogs, which can be produced by putrefaction. On the contrary, those
transformations which cannot be produced by the power of nature,
cannot in reality be effected by the operation of the demons; for
instance, that the human body be changed into the body of a beast, or
that the body of a dead man return to life. And if at times something
of this sort seems to be effected by the operation of demons, it is
not real but a mere semblance of reality.

Now this may happen in two ways. Firstly, from within; in this way a
demon can work on man's imagination and even on his corporeal senses,
so that something seems otherwise that it is, as explained above (Q.
111, AA. 3,4). It is said indeed that this can be done sometimes by
the power of certain bodies. Secondly, from without: for just as he
can from the air form a body of any form and shape, and assume it so
as to appear in it visibly: so, in the same way he can clothe any
corporeal thing with any corporeal form, so as to appear therein.
This is what Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xviii, 18): "Man's
imagination, which whether thinking or dreaming, takes the forms of
an innumerable number of things, appears to other men's senses, as
it were embodied in the semblance of some animal." This not to be
understood as though the imagination itself or the images formed
therein were identified with that which appears embodied to the
senses of another man: but that the demon, who forms an image in a
man's imagination, can offer the sam