are they called “they which are asleep,” but because they are in their own day? Therefore “they all slept.” Thinkest thou that because one is wise, he has not therefore to die? Be the virgin foolish, or be she wise, all suffer equally the sleep of death. 7. But men continually say to themselves, “Lo, the day of judgment is coming now, so many evils are happening, so many tribulations thicken; behold all things which the Prophets have spoken, are well-nigh fulfilled; the day of judgment is already at hand.” They who speak thus, and speak in faith, go out as it were with such thoughts to “meet the Bridegroom.” But, lo! war upon war, tribulation upon tribulation, earthquake upon earth- quake, famine upon famine, nation against nation, and still the Bridegroom comes not yet. Whilst then He is expected to come, all they who are saying, “Lo, He is coming, and the Day of Judgment will find us here,” fall asleep. Whilst they are saying this, they fall asleep. Let each one then have an eye to this his sleep, and persevere even unto his sleep in love; let sleep find him so waiting. For suppose that he has fallen asleep. “Will not He who falls asleep afterwards rise again?” 3103 Therefore “they all slept;” both of the wise and the foolish virgins in the parable, it is said, “they all slept.” 8. “Lo, at midnight there was a cry made.”3104 What is, “at midnight”? When there is no expectation, no belief at all of it. Night is put for ignorance. A man makes as it were a calculation with himself: “Lo, so many years have passed since Adam, and the six thousand years are being completed, and then immediately according to the computation of certain expositors, the Day of Judgment will come;” yet these calculations come and pass away, and still the coming of the Bridegroom is delayed, and the virgins who had gone to meet him sleep. And, lo, when He is not looked for, when men are saying, “The six thousand years were waited for, and, lo, they are gone by, how then shall we know when He will come?” He will come at midnight. What is, “will come at midnight”? Will come when thou art not aware. Why will He come when thou art not aware of it? Hear the Lord Himself, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Lord hath put in His own power.”3105 “The day of the Lord,” says the Apostle, “will come as a thief in the night.”3106 Therefore watch thou by night that thou be not surprised by the thief. For the sleep of death—will ye, or nill ye—it will come. 9. “But when that cry was made at midnight.” What cry was this, but that of which the Apostle says, “In the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump”? “For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed”?3107 And so when the 3103 Ps. xl. 9, Sept. (xli. 8, English version). 3104 Matt. xxv. 6. 3105 Acts i. 7. 3106 1 Thess. v. 2. 3107 1 Cor. xv. 52. 841 On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xxv. 1, ‘then shall the kingdom of heaven…