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Isaiah 40:3

The voice of him that cries in the wilderness, Prepare you the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Read Chapter 40

Ambrose of Milan

AD 397
God, indeed, never descends from any place, for he says, “I fill heaven and earth.” But he seems to descend when the Word of God enters our hearts, as the prophet has said, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” We are to do this, so that, as he himself promised, he may come together with the Father and make his abode with us. - "On the Christian Faith 5.7.98"
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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430
There it is written, “a voice of one crying in the wilderness,” the Word is conceived in the virgin’s womb. If the voice is not the Word, it is then a loud clanging of metal. For one then would not be able to say that every word is a sound but not every sound is a word. For it is not unfitting to take “the way” as that which came up to the very heart and filled us inwardly. Indeed, the heart became his place to which he comes and remains. - "Sermon 289"
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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430
John [the Baptist] was filled with the Holy Spirit; and he had a baptism from heaven, not from human beings. But how long did he have it? He said, “Prepare the way for the Lord.” But when the Lord was known, he himself became the way; there was no longer need for the baptism of John, by which the way was to be prepared for the Lord. - "Tractates on the Gospel of John 5.15.4"
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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430
They were not reborn, those who were baptized by John’s baptism, by which Christ himself was baptized. Rather, they were “prepared” by the ministry of a forerunner, who said, “Prepare a way for the Lord”—for him in whom alone they could be reborn. - "Enchiridion 14.49"
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Caesarius of Arles

AD 542
“I am the voice of one that cries out in the desert.” This means, I am not the Word that was with God from the beginning and that was God, but I am rather a voice; in other words, I am a minister of the Word, in order that through me he may reach the hearing and senses of [people]. For this reason the blessed Baptist exclaimed with equal humility, “He must increase, while I must decrease.” - "Sermons 217.2"
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Cyril of Jerusalem

AD 386
While the heavenly powers rejoice, let the souls that are to be united to the spiritual bridegroom make themselves ready. For the voice is heard of one crying in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” For this is no light matter, no ordinary and indiscriminate union according to the flesh but the all-searching Spirit’s election according to faith. - "Catechetical Lectures 3.1"
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George Leo Haydock

AD 1849
God, that he may conduct his people from Babylon. (Sanchez) Yet the prophet speaks chiefly of John the Baptist, (Matthew iii. 3.; Calmet) who is evidently foretold. (Worthington)
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Jerome

AD 420
In that the Word has now become flesh and dwelled among us, now there will not be in any way the voice of a prophet in the desert but the voice of the archangel, preparing the way for the one coming not in the humility of the flesh but for him who is with the Father. And in those days they were going out into the desert, so as to hear the forerunner of the assumed man and to see the sand perturbed by the wind. - "Letter 119.10"
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John Chrysostom

AD 407
Do you see that both by the words of the prophet and by his own preaching, this one and only thing is manifested, that he came, making a way and preparing beforehand, not bestowing the gift, which was the remission, but ordering in good time the souls of such as should receive the God of all? - "Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 10.3"
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Tertullian of Carthage

AD 220
Since even then by Isaiah it was Christ, the Word and the Spirit of the Creator who prophetically described John as “the voice of one crying in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord.” And [he] was about to come forth for the purpose of terminating from that point onwards the course of the law and the prophets: by their fulfillment and not their extinction. - "Against Marcion 4.33"
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Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20

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