Patristic
“(Orig. in Matt. tom. xii. 33, 35) But in a mystical sense, Christ is life, and the devil is death, and he tastes of death, who dwells in sin; even now every one, according as he has good or evil doctrines, tastes the bread either of life or of death. And indeed, it is a less evil to see death, a greater to taste of it, still worse to follow it, worst of all to be subject to it.”
Catena Aurea: Gospel of Mark, as excerpted in the Catena Aurea on Mark 8:34-38
PD · J. H. Newman (Oxford, 1842) ↗