We ought here, at the outset, to inquire why, when he is speaking concerning Christ, he employs the word death; but when he is speaking of our decease he calls it sleep, and not death.  For he did not say, Concerning them that are dead:  but what did he say?  “Concerning them that are asleep.”  And again—­“Even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.”  He did not say, Them that have died.  Still again—­“We who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them that sleep.”  Here, too, he did not say—­Them that are dead; but a third time, bringing the subject to their remembrance, for the third time called death a sleep.  Concerning Christ, however, he did not speak thus; but how?  “For if we believe that Jesus died.”  He did not say, Jesus slept, but He died.  Why now did he use the term death in reference to Christ, but in reference to us the term sleep?  For it was not casually, or negligently, that he employed this expression, but he had a wise and great purpose in so doing.  In speaking of Christ, he said death, so as to confirm the fact that Christ had actually suffered death; in speaking of us, he said sleep, in order to impart consolation.  For where resurrection had already taken place, he mentions death with plainness; but where the resurrection is still a matter of hope, he says sleep, consoling us by this very expression, and cherishing our valuable hopes.  For he who is only asleep will surely awake; and death is no more than a long sleep.

Say not a dead man hears not, nor speaks, nor sees, nor is conscious.  It is just so with a sleeping person.  If I may speak somewhat paradoxically, even the soul of a sleeping person is in some sort asleep; but not so the soul of a dead man; that is awake.

But, you say, a dead man experiences corruption, and becomes dust and ashes.  And what then, beloved hearers?  For this very reason we ought to rejoice.  For when a man is about to rebuild an old and tottering house, he first sends out its occupants, then tears it down, and rebuilds anew a more splendid one.  This occasions no grief to the occupants, but rather joy; for they do not think of the demolition which they see, but of the house which is to come, tho not yet seen.  When God is about to do a similar work, he destroys our body, and removes the soul which was dwelling in it as from some house, that he may build it anew and more splendidly, and again bring the soul into it with greater glory.  Let us not, therefore, regard the tearing down, but the splendor which is to succeed.

If, again, a man has a statue decayed by rust and age, and mutilated in many of its parts, he breaks it up and casts it into a furnace, and after the melting he receives it again in a more beautiful form.  As then the dissolving in the furnace was not a destruction but a renewing of the statue, so the death of our bodies is not a destruction but a renovation.  When, therefore, you see as in a furnace our flesh