Acts 7:60

Lay not this sin to their charge [μ η σ τ η σ η ς α υ τ ο ι ς τ η ν α μ α ρ τ ι α ν τ α υ τ η ν]. Lit., fix not this sin upon them.

He fell asleep [ε κ ο ι μ η θ η]. Marking his calm and peaceful death. Though the pagan authors sometimes used sleep to signify death, it was only as a poetic figure. When Christ, on the other hand, said, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth [κ ε κ ο ι μ η τ α ι]," he used the word, not as a figure, but as the expression of a fact. In that mystery of death, in which the pagan saw only nothingness, Jesus saw continued life, rest, waking - the elements which enter into sleep. And thus, in Christian speech and thought, as the doctrine of the resurrection struck its roots deeper, the word dead, with its hopeless finality, gave place to the more gracious and hopeful word sleep. The pagan burying place carried in its name no suggestion of hope or comfort. It was a burying - place, a hiding - place, a monumentum, a mere memorial of something gone; a columbarium, or dove - cot, with its little pigeon - holes for cinerary urns; but the Christian thought of death as sleep, brought with it into Christian speech the kindred thought of a chamber of rest, and embodied it in the word cemetery [κ ο ι μ η τ η ρ ι ο ν] - the place to lie down to sleep.