Melito of Sardis on Passover:

It was indeed a strange spectacle,
here people beating their breasts, there people wailing,
and grief-stricken Pharoah in the middle,
seated on sackcloth and ashes,
palpable darkness thrown around him as a mourning cloak,
clad in all Egypt like a tunic of grief....

The death of the first-born was swift and greedy,
it was a strange trophy on which to gaze,
upon those falling dead in one moment....

Listen and wonder at a new disaster,
for these things enclosed the Egyptians:
long night,
palpable darkness,
death grasping,
the angel squeezing out the life,
and Hades gulping down the first-born.

But the strangest and most terrifying thing you are yet to hear:
In the palpable darkness hid untouchable death,
and the wretched Egyptians were grasping the darkness,
while death sought out and grasped the Egyptian first-born
at the angel's command.

If anyone grasped the darkness
he was pulled away by death.
And one of the first-born,
grasping the material darkness in his hand,
as his life was stripped away
cried out in distress and terror:
"Whom does my hand hold?
Whom does my soul dread?
Who is the dark one enfolding my whole body?
If it is a father, help me.
If it is a mother, comfort me.
if it is a brother, speak to me.
If it is a friend, support me.
If it is an enemy, depart from me, for I am a first-born."

Before the first-born fell silent, the long silence held him and spoke to him:
"You are my first-born,
I am your destiny, the silence of death."

....

Tell me angel, what turned you away?
The slaughter of the sheep or the life of the Lord?
The death of the sheep or the type of the Lord?
The blood of the sheep or the spirit of the Lord?