The Forty strip for the frozen lake and pray as one

So then they were condemned to pass the night in the open air. The lake beside which the city is settled, where the saints were carrying on this contest, had become like a plain fit for horses, because the ice had transformed it. It had become dry land by the cold, and it safely allowed the people nearby to walk over its back. Ever-flowing rivers were bound by the ice and their streams stood still. The soft nature of the water was changed into the hardness of stone. The sharp blasts of the north wind were driving every living thing toward death.

So then, when they heard the order—and consider here how unconquerable these men were—each one threw off even his last tunic with joy and went toward death through the cold, urging one another on as if in the seizing of spoils. “We are not taking off a garment,” they said, “but we are putting away the old man, who is being corrupted according to the desires of deceit (Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:9). We thank you, Lord, that with this garment we cast off sin together with it. Since we put it on because of the serpent, let us take it off because of Christ. Let us not cling to our garments because of the paradise we lost. What shall we give back to the Lord (Psalm 115:12 LXX / Psalm 116:12 Hebrew)? The Lord was stripped for our sake as well. What great thing is it for a servant to suffer what belongs to the Master? Or rather, we ourselves are the ones who stripped the Lord. For that was the soldiers’ outrage: they stripped him and divided his garments (Matthew 27:35). So let us wipe out the written accusation against us through our own actions. The winter is sharp, but paradise is sweet. The freezing is painful, but the rest is pleasant. Let us wait a little while, and the bosom of the patriarch will warm us. Let us exchange a whole age for one night. Let the foot be frostbitten, so that it may dance forever with the angels. Let the hand fall away, so that it may have boldness to be lifted up to the Master. How many of our soldiers have fallen in battle, keeping faith with a mortal king? And will we not give up this life for faith in the true King? How many have endured the death of criminals, caught in wrongdoing? And will we not endure death for righteousness? Let us not turn aside, fellow soldiers; let us not give our backs to the devil. They are flesh; let us not spare them. Since we must certainly die, let us die so that we may live. Let our sacrifice be before you, Lord; and may we be accepted, as a living sacrifice, pleasing to you, being wholly burned by this cold. The offering is beautiful, the whole burnt offering is new: it is wholly consumed not by fire, but by cold.”

Giving these encouragements to one another, and each one urging on the next, as if they were holding a forward post in war, they passed the night, bearing the present circumstances nobly, rejoicing in what they hoped for, and laughing at the adversary. One prayer belonged to them all: “We entered the stadium as forty; may we be crowned as forty, Master. Let not even one be missing from the number. The number is precious, which you honored with the fast of forty days, through which the law entered the world. Elijah sought the Lord for forty days in fasting and obtained the vision (3 Kingdoms 19:8 (1 Kings 19:8 Hebrew)).” Such was their prayer. But one of the number, his knees buckling before the terrors, deserted and went away, leaving behind unspeakable grief for the saints. But the Lord did not allow their prayers to go unfulfilled.