Ambrosiaster : "Death" here refers to the devil, who is being insulted. — COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES Augustine of Hippo : Because human nature was subjected to an enemy as the just desert of sin, man must first be rescued from his power, that he might find him. Then if his life in this flesh is prolonged, he is assisted in the conflict that he may overcome the enemy. And finally the victor will be beatified, that he may reign, and at the very end he will ask: "Death, where is thy devouring?". — AGAINST JULIAN 20.65 Augustine of Hippo : I think that "death" in this passage refers to a carnal habit which resists the good will through a delighting in temporal pleasures. — QUESTIONS 70 Clement of Alexandria : It is a symbol, too, of the Lord's successful work, He having borne on His head, the princely part of His body, all our iniquities by which we were pierced. For He by His own passion rescued us from offences, and sins, and such like thorns; and having destroyed the devil, deservedly said in triumph, "O Death, where is thy sting?" And we eat grapes from thorns, and figs from thistles; while those to whom He stretched forth His hands—the disobedient and unfruitful people—He lacerates into wounds. — The Instructor Book 2 Cyril of Jerusalem : Jesus sanctified Baptism by being Himself baptized. If the Son of God was baptized, what godly man is he that despiseth Baptism? But He was baptized not that He might receive remission of sins, for He was sinless; but being sinless, He was baptized, that He might give to them that are baptized a divine and excellent grace. For since the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise partook of the same, that having been made partakers of His presence in the flesh we might be made partakers also of His Divine grace: thus Jesus was baptized, that thereby we again by our participation might receive both salvation and honour. According to Job, there was in the waters the dragon that draweth up Jordan into his mouth. Since, therefore, it was necessary to break the heads of the dragon in pieces, He went down and bound the strong one in the waters, that we might receive power to tread upon serpents and scorpions. The beast was great and terrible. No fishing-vessel was able to carry one scale of his tail: destruction ran before him, ravaging all that met him. The Life encountered him, that the mouth of Death might henceforth be stopped, and all we that are saved might say, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is drawn by Baptism. — Catechetical Lectures, Lecture 3 John Chrysostom : "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Seest thou his noble soul? how even as one who is offering sacrifices for victory, having become inspired and seeing already things future as things past, he leaps and tramples upon death fallen at his feet, and shouts a cry of triumph over its head where it lies, exclaiming mightily and saying, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" It is clean gone, it is perished, it is utterly vanished away, and in vain hast thou done all those former things. For He not only disarmed death and vanquished it, but even destroyed it, and made it quite cease from being. — Homily on 1 Corinthians 42 Tertullian : Since, therefore, shall then be accomplished the word which was written by the Creator, "O death, where is thy victory"-or thy struggle? "O death, where is thy sting? " -written, I say, by the Creator, for He wrote them by His prophet -to Him will belong the gift, that is, the kingdom, who proclaimed the word which is to be accomplished in the kingdom. — Against Marcion Book V Tertullian : And to none other God does he tell us that "thanks" are due, for having enabled us to achieve "the victory" even over death, than to Him from whom he received the very expression of the exulting and triumphant challenge to the mortal foe. — Against Marcion Book V Tertullian : Now, if the dominion of death operates only in the dissolution of the flesh, in like manner death's contrary, life, ought to produce the contrary effect, even the restoration of the flesh; so that, just as death had swallowed it up in its strength, it also, after this mortal was swallowed up of immortality, may hear the challenge pronounced against it: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? " For in this way "grace shall there much more abound, where sin once abounded. — On the Resurrection of the Flesh