Cyril of Alexandria

He accuses them sharply as knowing nothing, and accredits the design or purpose entrusted to him by Prophetic testimony. For I come, he says, to say nothing else than that He, The Looked for, is at length at the doors, yea rather the Lord within the doors. Be ye ready to go whatsoever way He bids you, ye have gone the way given you through Moses, take up that by Christ: for this the choir of the holy Prophets foretold you. A setting forth of sayings concerning the way that is after Christ. Isaiah. …

Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book 1 ↗

Theophylact of Ohrid

Then again they insistently ask: tell us, who are you? Then he answers them: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. "I," he says, "am the one about whom it is written, 'the voice of one crying in the wilderness' (Isa. 40:3). For if one does not add the words 'about whom it is written,' the combination of words will appear strange. What then does the voice cry out? …

Commentary on John ↗

Augustine of Hippo

"And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he said, No. And they said unto him, Art thou a prophet? and he answered, No! They said therefore unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself? He saith, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness." That said Isaiah. This prophecy was fulfilled in John, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness." Crying what? …

Tractates on John 4 ↗

Gregory the Dialogist

When he also denies that he is a prophet, because evidently he was able not only to preach the Redeemer but also to demonstrate him, he immediately expresses who he is when he adds: "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness." You know, dearest brothers, that the only-begotten Son is called the Word of the Father, as John testifies when he says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And from your own manner of speaking you recognize that the voice sounds first, so that the word may …

Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 7 ↗

Thomas Aquinas

So he says, I am a voice that cries in the wilderness. And he says that he is a voice because from the point of view of origin, a voice comes after the [mental, interior] word, but before the knowledge it causes. For we know a [mental, interior] word conceived in the heart by means of the voice which speaks it, since it is its sign. But God the Father sent the precursor John, who came to be in time, in order to make known his Word, which was conceived from eternity. And so he fittingly says, I am a voice. …

Commentary on John ↗