Ambrose of Milan

In his own words on Nehemiah

• Nehemiah 12:5

  So you say to me: Behold the Law prohibits the removal of a pledge, not its acceptance: but it commands that it be returned to the poor, not to everyone. But Ezra also taught us about the bodily pledges, that now, moneylenders, you are not able to come against the profession of your fathers. For when those who had lent money were commanded, and they had taken the pledges of others, to return them, they said: We return them, and we seek nothing from them. Good fathers, who established that the pledges of debtors should be returned: also good moneylenders who responded that they would both return the pledges and not require the money that they had given. And the judgment of your paternal position binds you to this, as well as the statement of the creditors.

  On Tobit