Chapter II — The notion of usury: all usury, whether small or great, whether exacted from a rich man or from a poor man, is forbidden by divine law

I. QUESTION I. What is usury? ANSWER. It is gain perceived from a loan by force of the loan. Whensoever gain is exacted by force of a loan, whether from a rich man or from a poor man, it is usurious. The vulgar are wont to constitute the whole crime of usury in the excess of gain. Which error of the vulgar the younger heretics have adopted, and one or another unskilled Catholic. But I shall show below that all err basely.

II. Some contend to disguise the doctrine concerning usury by a new distinction. They distinguish a twofold kind of loan: one of consumption, which is delivered to the needy; the other they call of trade, which is delivered to merchants for the enlarging of their money and the increasing of merchandise and business, whence vast utilities come to the commonwealth. The gain which is perceived from the first loan of consumption they confess to be usurious. That which is exacted from the other, the trading loan, they assert to be lawful, provided it be moderate and consonant with the laws of the country.

III. These crafty and inept fictions both the divine Scriptures and the Fathers explode. In Leviticus 25 these things are had: Take not usury of him, nor more than thou gavest. Here the particle more than thou gavest excludes altogether every accession added to the principal delivered. Similarly Christ the Lord says: Lend, hoping for nothing thereby. This word nothing disapproves not only excess, but any increase whatsoever, however small. I omit the testimonies of the Fathers, that I be not long.

IV. Usury is divided into real and mental. Real is the usurious gain itself. Mental is the will by which it is intended that something beyond the principal be perceived by force of the loan, as a debt, although it be not expressed by any agreement. It is also wont to be divided into lucrative, compensatory, and punitive. They call lucrative that gain which is perceived by force of the loan beyond the principal. Compensatory is that which is exacted for the compensating of the loss which the creditor suffers. Punitive is the gain which is imposed to be paid by a tardy borrower. Lucrative usury alone is usury properly so called, and vicious. And this alone is commonly understood by the name of usury.

V. They divide usury besides into conventional and necessitated. The former is owed from convention; the latter from delay, that is, on account of the postponement of paying the price from a contract of selling and buying, or on account of the postponement of rendering the principal lent. Others divide usury into formal, or express and open, perceived from a loan; and palliated, or virtual, which is hidden in other feigned contracts. Usury is also distributed into usury of the principal and usury of usury. The gain which is perceived from the principal, commonly called the capital, is usury of the principal. Usury of usury is when the agreed gain is not paid but is constituted into the principal, that it may again bring forth usury. And so gain from usurious gain is called usury of usury, and by Ulpian is called interusurium. Lastly, among the Romans one usury was centesima, that is, by which one in the hundred was paid every month, and consequently twelve in the year. Lower usuries were deunces, which paid eleven in the hundred; dextantes, ten; dodrantes, nine; bessales, eight; septunces, seven; semisses, six; quincunces, five; trientes, four; quadrantes, three; sextantes, two; unciariae, or uncia, one in the hundred. Some contend that under the name unciaria the centesima is understood. For the as unciarius consisted of twelve ounces. But for the rest, usuries unciariae are commonly held for the least.

VI. QUESTION II. Is all usury, whether perceived from the rich or from the poor, prohibited not only by natural but by divine law? ANSWER. Catholics commonly affirm it. I have examined this controversy with a full pen in Vol. VII, Book 3, dissertation 3. Here in few words I will touch upon the same. In any contract, if anything beyond the just price be exacted, justice is injured. When in a contract of loan you receive something beyond the principal, you exceed the measure of the just price: therefore you injure justice. For there is no title by force of which you can exact something beyond the principal. For money by its own nature is barren. Usurers laugh when they hear money called barren. But they offer themselves to be basely derided when they blurt out such things. A field also, they say, is barren; a house is barren; and yet from the use of them a price is paid. ANSWER. They betray themselves as more stupid by these things. A house by use becomes worse; therefore its use is separated from its dominion. If the house falls, it falls to the lord, to the letter. A field by its own nature is fruitful, though it needs to be helped by industry, that it may bear these fruits rather than others. If the field perishes by alluvion or other misfortune, it perishes to the lord. Money alone delivered on loan perishes to the borrower. Therefore in it the use cannot be distinguished from the dominion. What say the patrons of usuries here? If money can be let out just as a house, a field, a horse, why must money alone perish to the borrower, and all the rest to the letter? Let them afford a clear answer. They will never give another, save that money is civilly consumed by use, and that from this use dominion is inseparable. That the parity may press, lenders ought to lie under the danger of the money, just as letters lie under the danger of the horse, the house, the field. They will not have this. They will not, therefore, and yet gain is necessary. The patrons of usuries deny that gain can be exacted from money delivered on loan to the poor. And yet from a house, a field, a horse let out to the poor gain is by right perceived. Therefore they do not reason well when from the gain perceived from the letting of a house, a field, a horse, they infer that gain can be exacted from money delivered on loan.

VII. The patrons of usury object again: Although money be barren by its own nature, it is nevertheless fruitful. For money is equivalent to the thing, and with money are bought estates, houses, and other things which bear fruit. Nor does a field bring forth money; but because it bears fruits, from which money is gathered, it is called fruit-bearing. Similarly, although money does not bear money, yet because with money fruit-bearing things are procured, it is to be called fruitful, no otherwise than a field, a house, and the like.

VIII. These words rest upon no solid foundation. A borrower can by right buy fruit-bearing things, because he is lord of the money. If an estate bought with borrowed money be evicted, if it be swallowed by a river, if the house perish by fire, to whom does it perish? To the borrower. But to the lender the whole principal is to be rendered. Let those tell us, who are wont to display a skill in natural law, what natural law prescribes that he who suffers no inconvenience ought to experience the convenience. All things perish to the borrower — both the money lent and the things bought with the money. No danger of this loss, no inconvenience, will the lender undergo. But if the borrower, by his own industry, fortune complying, should gain something, does the lender dare to claim a part of that gain for himself? What law of nature, what equity, permits this?

IX. They insist again. Moderate usury is useful to the commonwealth. It being taken away, commerce falls, fairs fall, and all things are disturbed. Moneyed men refuse to lend gratis. So many merchants, so many craftsmen cannot conduct their business without borrowed money. Take away moderate usuries, and you have taken away business.

X. What then? Does the Christian religion break up human society, and destroy civil commerce, and forbid the enlarging of riches and merchandise? By no means. Nay, it recalls all these things to the laws of equity, and permits their sober and moderate use to man, weak and labouring under a thirst for riches. Let the patrons of usuries awake, and emerge at last from the darkness. Hitherto I have made plain the iniquity of usury, the law of nature alone being regarded, every other circumstance being removed. But now I say that, even if usury, all precision being made, were lawful, nevertheless in this state of lapsed and corrupt nature it would be destructive to human society and to civil commerce, and consequently would have to be prohibited. From original sin man contracted, among others, two most grave wounds: namely, concupiscence of the flesh, and of riches. With so great an impulse is he carried away toward riches, by which he fills all his appetitions, that he prescribes no measure for himself. Imagine usury committed to a man sound and an absolute moderator of his own cupidities. Will it therefore be expedient for a man infirm, wounded, and impotently thirsting for money? A drink of wine wholesome to a sound man can be poisonous to a sick man. Let those usurers hear the most severe declamations of Christ Jesus against men desirous of growing rich. Woe to you that are rich. … Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Let them hear the Apostle Paul thundering: They that will become rich fall into temptation, and into the snare of the devil, and into many desires hurtful, which drown men into destruction and perdition. Let them again lift up attentive ears: For the desire of money is the root of all evils; which some coveting have erred from the faith, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, fly these things; and pursue justice. 1 Timothy 6.