But you will say to me: Behold the law forbade that the pledge be carried away, not that it be taken, and it commanded that it be returned to the poor man, not to everyone. But indeed concerning corporeal pledges Esdras has also taught us adequately, on the basis of which now, usurers, you cannot go against the declaration of your fathers. For when those who had lent money and had received the pledges of others, were being bidden to restore them, they said: “We do restore and we require nothing of them.” Virtuous fathers, who decreed that the pledges of the debtors be returned; likewise good usurers who replied that they were returning the pledges and were not requiring the money which they had given! both the tenor of the command of your fathers and the declaration of the creditors binds you to these things.
