Ambrose of Milan : In the Old Testament the jaw of death is bitter, since it is said, "Strong death is all devouring." In the New Testament the jaw of death is sweet, for it has swallowed death, as the apostle says: "Death is swallowed up in victory! O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" — Letter 44.9 Ambrose of Milan : Stricken by the indecency of this act [the golden calf], Moses broke the tablets and shattered the head of the calf and beat it to powder in order to destroy all traces of impiety. The first tablets were broken so that the second ones might be repaired whereon, through the teaching of the gospel, faithlessness, now utterly destroyed, vanished. Thus Moses shattered that Egyptian pride and by the authority of the eternal law checked that loftiness overreaching itself. Therefore David says, "And the Lord will break the cedars of Lebanon, and shatter them like the calf of Lebanon. Thus the people swallowed all faithlessness and pride, so that impiety and haughtiness might not swallow them. For it is better that each person be master of his flesh and its vices, that it may not be said of him that all-powerful death has devoured him, but rather, "death is swallowed up in victory!" — Letter 74.5 Augustine of Hippo : The apostle said, "With the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin," not by giving my members over to committing iniquities but only by feeling lust, without however giving a hand to unlawful lust. So when he said, "With the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin," he went on to add, "There is therefore no condemnation now for those who are in Christ Jesus." For those who are in the flesh there is condemnation; for those who are in Christ Jesus no condemnation. In case you should assume this is going to be the case after becoming a Christian, that is why he added "now."What you must look forward to afterward is not even to have any lust in you which you have to contend with, which you have to combat, which you must not consent to, which you have to curb and tame; look forward to its simply not being there afterward. I mean to say, if what is now contending with us from its base in this mortal body is going to be there afterward, the taunt "Where, death, is your striving?" will be untrue. So let us be quite clear about what it is going to be like afterward. Then, you see, will come about the word that is written: "Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, death, is your striving? Where, death, is your sting? For the sting of death is sin; but the power of sin, the law." Because desire was increased, not extinguished, by being forbidden. The law gave sin power by simply commanding through the letter without assisting through the spirit. — SERMON 155:2 Basil of Caesarea : For eternal rest lies before those who have struggled through the present life observant of the laws, a rest not given in payment for a debt owed for their works but provided as a grace of the munificent God for those who have hoped in him. Then, before he describes the good things there, telling in detail the escape from the troubles of the world, he gives thanks for them to the liberator of souls, who has delivered him from the varied and inexorable slavery of the passions. But what are these good things?"For he has delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from falling." God describes the future rest by a comparison with things here. Here, he says, the sorrows of death have compassed me, but there he has delivered my soul from death. Here the eyes pour forth tears because of trouble, but there, no longer is there a tear to darken the eyes of those who are rejoicing in the contemplation of the beauty of the glory of God. "For God has wiped away every tear from every face." — HOMILIES ON THE Psalms 114 Cyril of Alexandria : It is appropriate and necessary that at the time the "mystery" is handed over, the "resurrection of the dead" is included. For at the time we make the confession of faith at holy baptism, we say that we expect the resurrection of the flesh. And so we believe. Death overcame our forefather Adam on account of his transgression and like a fierce wild animal it pounced on him and carried him off amid lamentation and loud wailing. Men wept and grieved because death ruled over all the earth. But all this came to an end with Christ. Striking down death, he rose up on the third day and became the way by which human nature would rid itself of corruption. He became the first born of the dead, and the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.We who come afterward will certainly follow the first fruits. He turned suffering into joy, and we cast off our sackcloth. We put on the joy given by God so that we can rejoice and say, "Where is your victory O death?" Therefore every tear is taken away. For believing that Christ will surely raise the dead, we do not weep over them, nor are we overwhelmed by inconsolable grief like those who have no hope. Death itself is a "reproach of the people" for it had its beginning among us through sin. Corruption entered in on account of sin, and death's power ruled on earth. — COMMENTARY ON Isaiah 3:1.25 Cyril of Alexandria : And since the holy Virgin brought forth as man God united personally to flesh, we say that she is the mother of God. [This is] not because the nature of the Word had a beginning of existence from the flesh, for "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"; he is the Creator of the ages, coeternal with the Father and Creator of all things. As we have stated before, having united humanity to himself personally he even endured birth in the flesh from the womb. He did not require because of his own nature as God a birth in time and in the last stages of the world. He was born in order that he might bless the very beginning of our existence and in order that, because a woman bore him when he was united to the flesh, the curse against the whole race might be stopped. The curse was sending our bodies from the earth to death, and by him abolishing the saying, "in pain shall you bring forth children," the words of the prophet might be shown to be true, "strong death has swallowed them up," and again "God has taken away every tear from every face." — THIRD LETTER TO NESTORIUS 17:18 Eusebius of Caesarea : Now the laws of love summoned him even as far as death and the dead themselves, so that he might summon the souls of those who were long time dead. And so because he cared for the salvation of all for ages past and that "he might bring to nothing him that has the power of death," as Scripture teaches, here again he underwent the dispensation in his mingled natures: as man, he left his body to the usual burial, while as God he departed from it. For he cried with a loud cry, and said to the Father, "I commend my spirit," and departed from the body free, in no way waiting for death, who was lagging as it were in fear to come to him. No, rather, he pursued him from behind and drove him on, trodden under his feet and fleeing, and he burst the eternal gates of his dark realms and made a road of return back again to life for the dead there bound with the bonds of death. Thus too, his own body was raised up, and many bodies of the sleeping saints arose and came together with him into the holy and real city of heaven, as rightly is said by the holy words: "Death has prevailed and swallowed people up; but again the Lord God has taken away every tear from every face." And the Savior of the universe, our Lord, the Christ of God, called Victor, is represented in the prophetic predictions as reviling death and releasing the souls that are bound there, by whom he raises the hymn of victory. — PROOF OF THE GOSPEL 4:12 Jerome : For which reason the Apostle placed: "Death has been swallowed up in contention; where is your contention, death? Where is your sting, O death?" And explaining the power of the testimony, he said: "But the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who has given us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Therefore, what he interpreted as the resurrection of the Lord, we cannot nor dare interpret differently. Death, hell, and the devil may be understood, who was killed by the death of Christ, about whom Isaiah also speaks: "Death has been swallowed up by victory" (Isaiah 25:8, LXX translation). And afterwards it follows: "The Lord hath taken away every tear from every face." Now, however, some understand that the two brothers who were separated by death, according to the history of that time, are Israel and Judah, so that what was then prefigured partly may now be felt in its entirety, and that with every human race Israel and Judah must be liberated and redeemed. — Commentary on Hosea