And they made proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem unto all the children of the captivity, that they should gather themselves together unto Jerusalem;
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Bede
AD 735
For Ezra prepared his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do and to teach in Israel its commandments and judgements. Oh how great is the virtue of this utterance, what sublime merit that a man should prepare his heart to serve the divine will and be able to say: My heart is prepared, Oh God, my heart is prepared; I will sing and recite a psalm to the Lord, i.e. I will both exult in the Lord with all my mind and will accomplish his ordinances by carrying them out in deeds'. Thus he prepared his heart to discover and rewrite the Law of the Lord that the devouring fire had destroyed; he also prepared his heart to first fulfil the Law himself by carrying it out and only then open his mouth to teach others. In the same way, this can manifestly apply to the Lord Jesus. For he prepared his own heart to discover the Lord's Law because he divinely provided for himself a man to assume, such that he would be not only without sin but also full of grace and truth, because, with no law of sin fighting against him, he would keep God's Law without any contradiction of mind or flesh.8 Hence he says in a psalm: At the beginning of the book it is written about me that I should do your will: Oh my God, I have desired it, and desired your law in the midst of my heart. In the same way, the Lord 'investigated' God's Law in that he rejected the traditions of the Pharisees and taught how Holy Scripture was to be understood mystically and what spiritual secrets it concealed beneath the veil of the letter, and because he showed that the decrees of the Gospel that he himself brought to the world were more perfect and more pleasing to God the Father than the ones that he had sent earlier through Moses. Hence he himself says: You have heard that it was said to them of old, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy '. But I tell you: Love your enemies; do good to those who persecute you, and other things of this sort.
