to the army the
orders of the emperor Licinius, for all to sacrifice, these forty went
boldly up to him, and said they were Christians, and that no torments
should make them ever abandon their holy religion. The judge first
endeavored to gain them by mild usage; as by representing to them the
dishonor that would attend their refusal to do what was required, and by
making them large promises of preferment and high favor with the emperor
in case of compliance. Finding these methods of gentleness ineffectual,
he had recourse to threats, and these the most terrifying, if they
continued disobedient to the emperor's order, but all in vain. To his
promises they answered, that he could give them nothing equal to what he
would deprive them of: and to his threats, that his power only extended
over their bodies, which they had learned to despise when heir souls
were at stake. The governor, finding them all resolute, caused them to
be torn with whips, and their sides to be rent with iron hooks. After
which they were loaded with chains, and committed to jail.

After some days, Lysias, their governor, coming from Caesarea to Sebaste,
they were re-examined, and no less generously rejected the large
promises made them than they despised the torments they were threatened
with. The governor, highly offended at their courage, and that liberty
of speech with which they accosted him, devised an extraordinary kind of
death; which being slow and severe, he hoped would shake their
constancy. The cold in Armenia is very sharp, especially in March, and
towards the end of winter, when the wind is north, as it than was; it
being also at that time a severe frost. Under the walls of the town
stood a pond, which was frozen so hard that it would bear walking upon
with safety. The judge ordered the saints to be exposed quite naked on
the ice.[1] And in order to tempt them the more powerfully to renounce
their faith, a warm bath was prepared at a small distance from the
frozen pond, for any of this company to go to, who were disposed to
purchase their temporal ease and safety on that condition. The martyrs,
on hearing their sentence, ran joyfully to the place, and without
waiting to be stripped, undressed themselves, encouraging one another in
the same manner as is usual among soldiers in military expeditions
attended with hardships and dangers; saying, that one bad night would
purchase them a happy eternity.[2] They also made this their joint
prayer: "