§ 1. Historical Notions

358. Concerning usury in Sacred Scripture. 1. It no longer seems possible seriously to doubt that there is no passage of Sacred Scripture which, taken per se, shows that lending at interest is illicit per se or universally. For:

a) As regards the Old Testament, even if it contained a universal prohibition, it would still be necessary to inquire into the title of that prohibition, since it could pertain equally well to positive law, abrogated by the new law, as to a declaration of immutable natural law. But all the passages which are adduced are conveniently understood in this way:

α) That they reprove biting usury by which the poor man is oppressed;

β) That they especially reprove it among the Jews themselves, who, as brothers, were joined to one another by a closer bond of charity.

To α). It suffices to place the most celebrated passages themselves before our eyes. Exodus, chap. 22, v. 25: “If you lend money to My people, to the poor man who dwells with you, you shall not press him as an exactor, nor oppress him with usuries” (Hebrew: “you shall not place a bite upon him”). — Leviticus, chap. 25, vv. 35-37: “If your brother has become poor and weak in hand, and you receive him as a stranger and a sojourner, and he lives with you, take no usury from him, nor more than you gave. Fear your God, so that your brother may be able to live with you. You shall not give him your money at usury, nor exact a surplus of fruits¹ from him.” — 4 Kings, chap. 4, v. 1, relates that the creditor was coming “to take the two sons [of the widow] . . . to serve him.” — Esdras, bk. 2, chap. 5, v. 5 (concerning the effects of usury): “Behold, we subject our sons and our daughters to servitude, and some of our daughters are servants; nor have we the means by which they can be redeemed, and others possess our fields and our vineyards.” — The practices of moneylenders are described by this imprecation of Psalm 108, v. 11: “Let the moneylender search all his substance.” — Ezekiel, chap. 18, vv. 8, 13, 17, indeed praises him who “has not lent at usury,” and condemns “him who gives at usury”; but both in v. 7 and in v. 12 he indicates that he is speaking of the devices by which they afflicted “the needy and the poor,” and he likewise commands the restitution of the pledge received from the debtor. — Amos, chap. 8, v. 4: “Hear this, you who crush the poor.”

¹ By this expression the Hebrew word tharbith is rendered, which is not employed except when placed beside usury. It therefore appears to signify a kind of usury in which not money but a portion of the fruits was given to the creditor.

From this, in their relation to these facts, it is readily known toward what end the few passages which appear more universal are directed. Psalm 14, v. 5: “Who shall rest upon Your holy mountain? . . . He who has not given his money at usury”; and Ezekiel, chap. 22, v. 12: “You have received usury and surplus, and avariciously calumniated your neighbors; and you have forgotten Me (O house of Israel), says the Lord God.”

To β). Besides the passages already adduced from Exodus, Leviticus, and Esdras, the following especially pertain here: Deuteronomy, chap. 15, vv. 7-10, where the Lord wills that money be lent to a poor brother even when the seventh year, in which remission of the debt had to be made, is approaching; in the same book, chap. 23, vv. 19-20: “You shall not lend at usury to your brother money, or fruits, or any other thing whatever, but to a foreigner”²; Esdras, bk. 2, chap. 5, v. 7: “Do each of you exact usuries from your brothers?”

² This permission to lend at interest to foreigners is sufficiently troublesome to many theologians. In order to extricate themselves, there were some who suspected that these words were not genuine and that the passage had been interpolated (Roman Rota, pt. 5, vol. 1, decision 301, no. 45); others fled for refuge to the supreme dominion of God, by which He can permit the usurpation of another’s property. This explanation is truly marvelous. And unless you say that a general power of despoiling foreigners was granted to the Jews, it is not apparent why this kind of injustice would have been honored by a special favor. Nor should you object to the faculty of divorce. For, besides the fact that dispensations of this kind cannot be multiplied without a compelling reason, there is this difference between the two species: that the absolute indissolubility of marriage, though consonant with the wishes of nature, nevertheless pertains to divine positive law, while the equality to be observed in contracts is among the chief precepts of nature. It will be said more rightly, in order to reconcile the passage with Catholic doctrine, that lending at interest was, on account of the special rationales of their polity, absolutely forbidden among the Jews, even if an extrinsic title were present, but was less absolutely forbidden if there was question of a foreign debtor, with whom they were joined by a less close bond of charity. Or, if you prefer, this passage contains a positive prohibition proper to that nation, but pronounces nothing concerning natural law. Rabbi Hermann Adler wrote concerning this passage in the article “Can Jews Be Patriots?” (Nineteenth Century, April 1878, p. 640).

b) As regards the New Testament, it contains nothing, not even in appearance. For in the passage of Luke, chap. 6, vv. 34-35, the Lord commends to us this love of enemies: that those benefits which others bestow only upon friends, and from a consideration of their own utility, should be shown by us even to enemies, without any hope of human repayment; and among these benefits is money lent to a person in need. Therefore, the words of the Lord “do not pertain to the present question of usury,” says C. d’Annibale, vol. 2, no. 533; “this is now known almost to the bleary-eyed and barbers.”

2. Whether, from the interpretation of the Fathers and the sense of the Church, greater force is to be assigned to these same passages, so that they demonstrate a universal prohibition of usury? Not a few authors (for example, Rev. Frs. Lehmkuhl and Weiss), following Benedict XIV,³ On the Diocesan Synod, bk. 10, chap. 4, no. 6, affirm this.

³ He writes thus: “The opinion of the Councils, the Fathers, and the Supreme Pontiffs was concordant, especially that of Urban III in chap. Consuluit, On Usury, who, by the authority of the aforesaid text (of St. Luke), pronounced every usury, however minimal, to be universally forbidden. . . . It is certain and indubitable that she [the Church] cannot err in interpreting divine Scripture and in disclosing its genuine sense to the faithful.” The rigid Concina did not fail to defend this severity with claw and beak.

By what right they say this, however, it seemed proper to us to investigate sincerely. After this inquiry we judge: a) that there is no consensus of the Fathers by which we are compelled to abandon the literal exposition of the texts; b) that no direct declaration of their sense is had from the laws of the Church, but that appeal is made only in general to the pages of both Testaments as confirming the severity of the sanctions, so that no definition of the authentic magisterium is had,⁴ except perhaps in favor of the sense which the texts prefer at first appearance. For it cannot be doubted that usury is in some manner disapproved by these passages.

⁴ It is known that even in an infallible document less exact reasons can be adduced, and that these are not clothed with the authority of the conclusion.

Moreover, these things will appear more clearly from what is to be said immediately.

359. Concerning usury among the Holy Fathers. 1. UNTIL THE FOURTH CENTURY, nothing else can be gathered from the Holy Fathers or ecclesiastical writers except that to exact interest from a poor or needy person was contrary to the precept of humanity and mercy. Nor do they affirm that a universal prohibition of usury is contained in the Scriptures. Let these principal passages be considered:

a) Apollonius (second century), in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, bk. 5, chap. 18 (Migne, P.G., vol. 2, cols. 478-479), wishes to show that the Montanists do not have true prophets:

“For since the Lord commanded: ‘Do not possess gold or silver, or two tunics,’ these persons, on the contrary, have gravely transgressed in the possession of forbidden things. For we shall show that those who are called prophets and martyrs by them collect money not only from the rich, but also from beggars, orphans, and widows. . . . Tell me, does a prophet dye his hair? Does he paint his eyes with antimony? Does he study to be adorned? Does a prophet play at the gaming board and with dice? Does he lend money at interest? Let them confess frankly and answer whether it is lawful to do these things or otherwise.”

b) Clement of Alexandria (second-third century), Stromata, bk. 2, chap. 18 (Migne, P.G., vol. 8, cols. 1023-1026), expressly commends the humanity of the old law from the precept of not lending at interest to one’s brother. For he has the following: “Although many things could be said concerning giving and sharing, it suffices to say this: that the law prohibits lending at interest to a brother . . . judging it inequitable that we should reap usury from money, but that with open hands and minds we should show favor to the needy. For God instituted this rationale of charity (Θεὸς γὰρ ὁ κτίστης τοιᾶσδε χάριτος); and the liberal man already receives sufficient interest—those things which among men are most precious, most sweet, and most useful, namely, magnificence, praise, and glory. Does this not seem to you a precept of humanity, like this one: To render the poor man’s wage on the same day . . . ?”

c) Tertullian (160 to the third century), Against Marcion, bk. 4, chap. 17 (Migne, P.L., vol. 2, cols. 398-399). There he treats the general argument of the agreement between the Old and New Testaments (which Marcion referred to two different authors). Comparing the passage of Ezekiel (chap. 18, v. 8) with Luke, chap. 6, he judges that the prohibition of usury in the Old Testament prepared the more perfect law which would command a man to renounce even the principal (and thus he rightly takes the words of the Gospel, “hoping for nothing from it”). “It came first, therefore, that He uproot the fruit of interest, so that He might more readily accustom man, if perhaps it should occur, to the loss even of the loan itself, whose fruit he had learned to relinquish.”

d) St. Cyprian († 258). α) In the work On the Lapsed, chap. 6 (Migne, P.L., vol. 4, cols. 470-471), he describes the corrupt morals of Christians, which had to be purified by the fire of persecution. “Very many bishops,” he continues, “. . . having despised divine administration, become managers of secular affairs; having abandoned the episcopal chair and deserted the people, wandering through foreign provinces, hunt the markets of profitable trade; while their brethren in the Church are hungry, they wish to possess silver in abundance, seize estates by treacherous frauds, and increase the loan through multiplying usuries.” This reproof of the bishops, because they exacted devouring usuries from the poor, certainly contains no general condemnation of the matter.

β) In the book Testimonies, III, 48 (Migne, P.L., vol. 4, col. 759), under the title “One Must Not Lend at Interest,” he merely sets forth three passages of the Old Testament, one of which, that of Ezekiel, clearly treats of usury by which the poor man is oppressed.

2. IN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES, we encounter that condition of affairs in which the faithful, departing from their former fervor, by their morals and their avarice moved the Holy Fathers almost to desire a regime in which goods would have remained common, so that not a few passages had to be explained by us in which they seemed to favor a certain communism. This is already no slight indication that ecclesiastical writers then had regard more to the usuries of their own time, concerning which the poet Ausonius could write, “Swift usury slaughters the poor,” than to a universal definition of doctrine. Certainly, their words may not be accepted without a just moderation. Come, therefore; let us relate sincerely the principal passages from which we may then conclude justly.

A. The Greek Fathers.

a) St. Basil (331-379), On a Part of Psalm XIV and against Moneylenders (Migne, P.G., vol. 29, col. 263 ff.): “This sin,” he says in no. 1, “is censured in very many passages of Scripture. For Ezekiel reckons among the greatest evils the taking of interest and surplus.⁵ Indeed, the law also plainly prohibits it” (col. 266). — He then adds this rationale for the prohibition: “For in reality it is the very greatest inhumanity for him who lacks necessities to seek a loan for the support of life, while the other, not content with the principal, devises for himself income from the poor man’s calamities and gathers riches” (ibid.). — Then he describes the cunning and hardness of moneylenders, using those figures and comparisons which St. Ambrose will imitate in the book On Tobit, and he dissuades everyone, whether poor or wealthy, from seeking money by loan: “Listen,” he continues in no. 5, “you rich, to the counsel which we give the poor on account of your inhumanity. . . . If you obeyed the Lord, what need would there be for these words? But what is the Lord’s counsel (συμβουλή)? Lend to those from whom you do not hope for repayment. But how does He call that a loan to which no hope of repayment is joined? Understand the force of the statement, and you will marvel at the humanity of the legislator. When, for the sake of the Lord, you give to a poor man, you both give and lend at the same time: you give because you do not hope that you will receive anything; you lend because the Lord will repay magnificently on behalf of the poor man” (278). — Finally, at the end, directly assailing the moneylender: “You make profit from calamities; from tears you gather silver; you strangle the naked; you beat the hungry. . . . You plant without earth; you reap without sowing” (279).

⁵ Understand usury which is paid from the fruits of the field. Cf. Leviticus, chap. 25, vv. 35-37, and here, above, note 1 to no. 358.

b) St. Gregory of Nyssa (the brother and contemporary of St. Basil), in the oration Against Usurers (Migne, P.G., vol. 46, col. 434 ff.), with great force of words censures that false appearance of a benefit by which the poor man is destroyed: “From a helper you are turned into an enemy; for you do not bring aid . . . but sow evils for the afflicted man, stripping the naked” (col. 435). “Therefore, do not, under the appearance of humanity, live an inhuman life, nor be a physician who kills” (438). “Do not exact profit, but bestow a benefit without hope of gain” (439). — He rebukes the moneylender because he wishes to gather fruits not sown,⁶ seeking them from a poor man and from gold and bronze, “which are not accustomed to bear offspring” (442). — “From the poor man you exact a return and an increase of your riches. You act in the same way as if someone wished to obtain a heap of wheat from a field dried up by the most burning heat, or a multitude of grapes from a vineyard after hail had fallen upon it, or the fruit of children from a barren womb, or the nourishment of milk from women who have not given birth” (442). — The moneylender’s money had no other use: “The moneylender grieves over silver laid up at home, because it is idle and unfruitful” (438). — “For this reason Sacred Scripture, which forms us for every piety, everywhere prohibits usury” (442-443). In the same place he teaches that in the Gospel we are admonished not to lend to those from whom we hope to receive, but to forgive the debt itself. — He describes the most sorrowful effects of the payment exacted: “How many have killed themselves by the noose on account of usury . . .” (447). — He judges a loan to be a kind of gift: “A loan is another species of donation” (451). — And thus he threatens the moneylender with the punishments of a man without mercy: “For he who does not give a loan and he who gives under the condition of usury are equally subject to punishment. The inhumanity of the former and the huckster’s gain of the latter are deservedly condemned” (451).

⁶ It is useful to transcribe this elegant allegory (col. 438): “He wishes all things to be produced for him without sowing and unplowed; his plow is the pen; his field, the paper; his seed, the ink; his rain, the time which augments the fruits of his money by hidden increases. The sickle is the demand for repayment; the threshing floor, the house in which he winnows the fortunes of the wretched.”

c) St. John Chrysostom (347-407). α) On Genesis, homily 41 (Migne, P.G., vol. 53, cols. 376-377), affirms that a universal prohibition against asking usury was made by the Lord, while the Jews were forbidden to ask it only from their brothers. — He adds the rationale for the prohibition: “For the debtor indeed is worn down by want, while the creditor, increasing his riches, heaps up for himself a multitude of sins” (col. 377).

β) On Matthew, homily 5, no. 5, at the end (Migne, vol. 57, cols. 61-62), inveighs against the usury of his own time: “For nothing—certainly nothing—is more shameful than present usury, nothing more cruel. For a moneylender of this kind traffics in the calamity of others.” — He rejects the excuse of profit ceasing: “But what do you ask, you will say? Whether I should give to another for use the money I have gathered, which is useful to me, without seeking any recompense from it? Far be it: I do not speak thus. . . . I wish you to receive heaven as interest for your gold.”

γ) On Matthew, homily 56 (otherwise 57), nos. 5-6 (Migne, vol. 57, cols. 556-558), opposes the cares which usury produces to the ease of mercy: “What is more difficult than lending at interest? . . . But to exercise mercy is easy and frees one from every anxiety. Therefore, let us not traffic in the calamities of others; let us not turn to profit those things which pertain to love of neighbor (φιλανθρωπία).” — He condemns the oppression of the poor through usury. “For a grave, certainly grave, and altogether curable disease has invaded the Church. Those who are prohibited from accumulating money even from just labors—indeed, who are commanded to open their treasures to the needy—grow rich from the poverty of others, devising a specious robbery and a well-colored avarice.” — “Do not,” he continues, “object to me the external laws; for the publican observes that external law and nevertheless suffers punishments.” — He says that this was prohibited in the Old Testament: “Do you not hear that it is prohibited even in the Old Testament?” — Indeed, he condemns it as injustice: “This is the bond of injustice; this is the noose (στραγγαλιά) of compelled agreements.” — He recommends other means of gaining: “Are there not many just kinds of business? Fields, flocks, herds, manual labors, and diligent care of household affairs? Why are you so mad as to reap thorns in vain?”

B. The Latin Fathers.

a) Lactantius († 340?), Institutes, bk. 6, chap. 18 (Migne, P.L., vol. 6, cols. 698-699), again posits a loan made to a poor man. He nevertheless expressly says that interest is a usurpation of another’s property. “If [the just man] has lent any money, he will not receive usury, so that the benefit by which he relieves necessity may remain unimpaired, and that he may abstain altogether from another’s property. For in this kind of duty he ought to be content with his own, although elsewhere he ought not even to spare his own property in order to do good; but to receive more than he gave is unjust. He who does this lies in wait, as it were, so that he may prey upon another’s necessity.” — And in the Epitome of the Divine Institutes, chap. 64 (Migne, P.L., vol. 6, col. 1076): “He will not steal, nor desire anything at all belonging to another; he will not give money at usury (for this is to seize profits from the evils of others), yet neither will he refuse if necessity compels someone to borrow.”

b) St. Hilary (310?-366), commentary on Psalm XIV, no. 15, at the passage “He who has not given his money at usury” (Migne, P.L., vol. 9, col. 307), has the following: “For what is so intolerable as to bestow a benefit upon a needy man in such a way that he becomes more needy, and, while about to bring aid, to increase the poor man’s misery? . . . If you are a Christian, why do you invest your idle money for income and make the need of your brother, for whom Christ died, your treasure? If you are a Christian, I do not ask you to give freely; at least demand the debt in such a way that you do not despoil; and remember that he from whom you demand usury is needy and poor, for whose sake Christ willed to be needy and poor.” Therefore, he censures usury at the same time because it is a pseudo-benefit, because it is profit from a brother’s necessity, because it is the spoliation of that brother, and because it is income from idle money. Whether, however, he understands these reasons taken collectively, as they say, or also each one separately, is not established.

c) St. Ambrose (340-397). α) On Tobit (Migne, P.L., vol. 14, col. 759 ff.), in which book he makes very great use of St. Basil, place cited, as his master and model. — He attacks truly ruinous usuries which pertain to those practices of despoiling others that he reproves in the book On Naboth. Hence the money of moneylenders is compared by him with serpents (chap. 12) and with the waves of the sea (chap. 5). “How many,” he himself says in chap. 7, “have strangled themselves on account of interest? . . . Here is the shipwreck of all” (chap. 13, no. 44). “What is it to lend at interest? To kill a man,” he says (Cicero) (chap. 14, no. 46). These usuries are at the rate of the hundredth, or twelve percent. Cf. chap. 9, no. 34; chap. 12, no. 42; chap. 14, no. 50. Through them the poor man is oppressed: “The poor man is fertile for your profit” (chap. 3, no. 11); on account of a loan granted for prodigal dissipations, the rich are reduced to poverty (chap. 5; for example, no. 19), and children are sold at auction (chap. 8). He presents the moneylender feigning friendship (chap. 3, no. 10), hunting for new heirs and unwary young men (chap. 6), or those devoted to gambling (chap. 7). — He calls the money which is furnished idle: “Let that which was idle for you [money] profit another” (chap. 2, no. 8); nevertheless, at the same time he does not deny the danger of losing the principal, but rejects this excuse (chap. 2, no. 8; chap. 3, no. 9; chap. 16, no. 54). — He condemns every form of usury, whether money or some other thing is to be furnished: “Food is usury, clothing is usury, and whatever is added to the principal is usury” (chap. 14, no. 49). — He uses certain words by which every interest-bearing loan is condemned: “The loan by which usuries are sought is evil” (chap. 2, no. 7). “Generally, this sentence of God (Leviticus 25:36) has excluded every increase of the principal” (thus chap. 15, no. 52. From the context of the discourse, however, he intends rather that usury cannot be sought from anyone than that no usury, even moderate usury, can be sought.) — He posits that the loan is sought without a profitable use. For he turns everyone away from receiving a loan: “Are you rich? Do not take a loan. Are you poor? Do not take a loan. Are you rich? You suffer no necessity of seeking one. Are you poor? Consider the difficulty of repaying” (chap. 21, no. 82). — He argues from passages of the Old Testament (chaps. 14 and 15), but contends also that the precept concerning not retaining a pledge was universal (chap. 17). — Apart from the effects of ruin, he himself adds no argument of reason.

β) Letter 19, to Vigilius, chaps. 4-5 (Migne, vol. 16, cols. 983-984), among the instructions for performing well the episcopal office, admonishes him to take care to cut away the vice of usury, concerning which he writes the following: “If a Christian man has money, let him give it as though he were not going to receive it; or certainly as one going to receive the principal which he gave. . . . Otherwise, this is to deceive, not to give aid. . . . Peoples have often fallen because of interest, and it has been a cause of public ruin.”

d) St. Jerome (340?-420), commentary on Ezekiel, chap. 18, v. 5 ff. (Migne, P.L., vol. 25, cols. 176-177), shows this progress in the Law and the Gospel: “But see the progress: at the beginning of the Law, interest is taken away only from brothers; in the Prophet [Ezekiel], usury is prohibited from everyone. . . . Moreover, in the Gospel there is an increase of virtue, the Lord commanding: ‘Lend to those from whom you do not hope to receive.” In the same manner he condemns both those who receive money and those who receive another thing as interest: “Some think that usury exists only in money. Foreseeing this, divine Scripture removes the surplus of every thing, so that you may not receive more than you gave.” To those who objected that the debtor had obtained fruit from the money received, he answers thus: “Let the merciful moneylender answer us briefly: did he give to one who had, or to one who did not have? If to one who had, he certainly ought not to have given; but he gave as though to one who did not have. Why, then, does he exact more as from one who has?” It therefore seems that he would have spoken otherwise if useful money had been lent to a rich man.

β) On Amos, chap. 8, v. 4 ff. (Migne, vol. 25, col. 1080), in explaining the prophet, he presents him rebuking the rich thus: “You who await the calends, in order that you may conduct business and augment usuries from usuries.”

e) St. Augustine (354-430). α) Letter 153, To Macedonius, no. 25, at the end (Migne, vol. 33, cols. 664-665), expressly regards usury as an art of slaughtering the poor man, similar to theft by which the rich are harmed, and as a cause of due restitution. “Is he more cruel who secretly takes something or snatches it from the rich man, than he who slaughters the poor man by interest? These things . . . are possessed wrongfully, and I would that they be restored; but there is no judge before whom they may be reclaimed.”

β) On Psalm 36, no. 6 (Migne, P.L., vol. 36, col. 386), he condemns the receipt of any thing above the amount given: “I do not wish you to be moneylenders, and I do not wish it because God does not will it. . . . If you have lent to a man at interest, that is, if you have given your money to him as a loan, from whom you expect to receive something more than you gave—not money alone, but something more than you gave, whether it be wheat, or wine, or oil, or any other thing whatever—if you expect to receive more than you gave, you are a moneylender, and in this you are to be condemned, not praised.” At the same time he seems to have biting usury in view. Otherwise, could he have written: “And how detestable it is, how hateful, how execrable, I think that even the moneylenders themselves know”?

f) St. Leo the Great (end of the fourth century-461). α) Sermon XVII (otherwise XVI) (Migne, P.L., vol. 54, col. 181) inveighs with grave words against the loan at interest by which the poor man is oppressed, and condemns it as injustice: “Unjust and shameless avarice, which says that it is bestowing a benefit when it deceives . . . deservedly falls frequently into this, that for it the desire of unjust gain becomes the cause of a not unjust loss. . . . The iniquity of interest must be fled altogether; and gain which lacks all humanity must be avoided.”

β) Letter IV to the bishops established throughout Campania, etc. (Migne, vol. 54, col. 613), censures usuries even when a layman takes them: “Certain persons, seized by a desire for shameful gain, employ money at usury and wish to grow rich by interest. We grieve that this befalls, I will not say those who are established in clerical office, but even laymen who desire to be called Christians.”

g) St. Maximus of Turin (flourished in the middle of the fifth century), homily Against Avarice (Migne, vol. 57, cols. 476-477), describes the wicked effects of the usuries by which the poor are afflicted:

“Avarice is ashamed of the name of usury, and is not ashamed of the profit of usury. Therefore, the avaricious man always uses another’s property; he feeds himself upon another’s loss. Another’s want is prey for him; another’s weeping is joy for him, as we have always seen happen. How many lament things lost, over the seizure of which many others rejoice. . . . Tell me, O Christian: are you not pierced, are you not constrained, when you see the tears of others in your lodging?”

h) Sidonius Apollinaris (430-490?), Letter 24, To Turnus (Migne, P.L., vol. 58, cols. 528-531), relates that, in order to seek a delay in the name of a debtor afflicted by illness and debt, he approached the creditor; and that the latter, having become a cleric, kindly granted a delay and remitted the usuries. The creditor used these words: “Far be it from me, as a cleric, to reclaim from a sick man what I would scarcely have sought as a soldier from a healthy man”; and Sidonius himself says that he “loved both reputation and conscience,” because “he did not sell earthly benefits.” Hence he exhorts Turnus, the debtor’s son, to pay the debt without delay. Otherwise: “If whatever he had piously granted on account of mercy suffers delay, he justly reclaims it on account of the injury.”

3. CONCERNING THE LATER FATHERS, there is no reason for us to bring forward many testimonies. For already after the age of St. Gregory the Great, many judge that the patristic age must be concluded. Moreover, ecclesiastical writers themselves not rarely merely repeat statements made by the earlier writers, and the tradition of the Church can appear to us more clearly from the Councils of bishops. We shall therefore be content with these:

a) St. Gregory of Tours (538-593 or 594), History of the Franks, bk. 3, no. 34 (Migne, P.L., vol. 71, cols. 266-267), relates the deed of a bishop who asked the king for money to be lent to citizens who were engaged in business. Of his own accord he promised: “We shall return your money with lawful usuries.” The citizens in fact came by this means to a better fortune. The king generously refused the money offered by the bishop. This entire manner of acting is related by St. Gregory without any reproof.

b) Procopius of Gaza (465-528), commentary on Leviticus 25:35 (Migne, P.G., vol. 87, col. 787), says: “From these words it is evident that lending at interest and usury arise from impiety and drive away all humanity. God, however, did not command that they exercise that beneficence toward foreign nations. . . . But now humanity and beneficence must be shown toward all.”

c) St. Gregory the Great (540-604), Letters, bk. 9, letter 38, To Anthemius (Migne, P.L., vol. 77, cols. 972-973), relates without disapproval a contract by which someone promised another, from whom he was receiving merchandise, to pay something “of the price for the sake of profit.” When the business turned out otherwise, St. Gregory wishes Anthemius to approach the seller, whom he calls “our magnificent son,” so that he, “as befits a Christian and a noble man, being more benign than rigid,” may, out of mercy, “be content with the principal of the price received.” These words indicate some usury; the agreement, however, can be regarded as a kind of partnership rather than as mere lending at interest.

d) St. John Damascene († 750), Sacred Parallels, tit. IX (Migne, P.G., vol. 95, cols. 1363-1366), merely gathers texts from both Testaments concerning usuries, and then presents in an abridgment the homily of St. Basil, indicated above, against moneylenders, whose doctrine he thereby tacitly approves.

e) Rabanus Maurus († 856), archbishop of Mainz, commentary on Ecclesiasticus, bk. 7, chap. 10 (Migne, P.L., vol. 109, cols. 973-974), speaking of faenus (he understands a loan for consumption), wills that, out of mercy and with the danger of losing the money disregarded, a loan be furnished to a needy neighbor, and indeed in such a way that he is not afflicted by the taking of a pledge; at the same time he commands that the money received be returned. Concerning usuries, nothing.

The same author had earlier, in Expositions on Leviticus, bk. 7, chap. 7 (Migne, P.L., vol. 108, col. 543), related a passage from Hesychius, where he says: “The letter of Leviticus exacts aid for the poor man.”

f) St. Ivo († 1117), bishop of Chartres in France, in pt. 13 of the Decree (Migne, P.L., vol. 161, cols. 805-806), gathers canons and laws concerning usurers and moneylenders. There, after the chapters by which clerics are prohibited from every lending at interest, chaps. 19 and 20 are placed, taken from the Code and the Capitularies, by which all are prohibited from practicing “wicked interest” and exacting usuries upon usuries.

g) St. Bruno of Asti, who was bishop of Segni († 1125). α) On Leviticus 25 (Migne, P.L., vol. 164, col. 459), he laments that the poor are harassed by Christians “with importunate interest”: “We have often seen the whole substance of the poor suddenly devoured by a small sum of money lent.”

β) On Deuteronomy 23 (Migne, vol. 164, col. 528): “You shall not lend to your brother at usury. . . . These words are full of piety and love, by which we are admonished that we aid without usury those whom we ought to love as being of our own race and of the same religion. Hence moneylenders are condemned no less in the New Testament than in the Old.”

With all these things accurately weighed, the following seem to us capable of being established invincibly concerning the force and authority of the Fathers in this matter:

a) There is no consensus of the Fathers by which we are compelled, in interpreting the passages of the Scriptures, to abandon the obvious sense, or that which is gathered per se. For: α) As regards the Old Testament, different authors give different force to the passages; several (Clement of Alexandria, St. John Chrysostom, and, as regards Leviticus, St. Jerome) understand that the prohibition was circumscribed to brothers; and these passages, which thus retain their proper signification, are referred by them to the precepts of humanity and mercy rather than to those of justice. β) As regards the New Testament, not a few already took the words of the Lord in the manner which pleases modern interpreters. Thus Tertullian, St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Jerome.

b) With perhaps one or another exception, they do not clearly accuse lending at interest of injustice.

c) Nor do they ever directly consider the case in which someone asks a moderate usury. For the passages which are brought forward by some authors do not regard the quantity of the interest, but its form, whether open (in money) or disguised (in merchandise). Cf. the cited passages of St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome.

d) Nor would most of them have spoken rightly if they were to be understood concerning the prohibition of moderate usury as unjust. For no theologian denies that, consistently with justice, moderate usuries can be exacted even from a poor man to compensate for the danger of losing the principal. Yet the excuse from danger is rejected by the Fathers. They themselves, however, acknowledge the danger of losing the principal; and it can scarcely be absent where the needy are concerned.

e) But the usuries in whose reprobation the Holy Fathers agree, appealing to Scripture, and which some—for example, Lactantius and St. John Chrysostom—even accuse of injustice, are the inhuman usuries by which the poor were destroyed and an appearance of benefit covered the greatest cruelty.

f) This false appearance of a benefit is their chief argument. Scarcely anyone among them brings forward a more universal rationale.

360. Concerning usury in canonical laws and among the Scholastic doctors or the classical interpreters of canon law.

The matter seems to us capable of being proposed precisely thus.

1. UNTIL THE NINTH CENTURY, by very many decrees of Councils, chiefly particular Councils, and not rarely under severe sanctions, clerics alone were prohibited from practicing usuries and taking what was called shameful gain. Nor, in the Greek Church, did this discipline become more severe, so that the Quinisext Council (692), canon XI, merely repeated the words of canon 44 of those called apostolic, which is to be cited immediately.

Canon 20 of the Council of Elvira (in Baetica) must be excepted from their number; in the year 305 or 306, it commands that the obstinate layman “who shall have persisted in that iniquity be cast out of the Church” (Mansi, vol. 2, col. 9). But Scipione Maffei, work cited, p. 123, regards this reading as suspect; and in fact neither Ivo, Decree, XIII, 12; Panormia, III, 156 (Migne, P.L., vol. 161, cols. 805, 1167); nor Gratian, chap. Si quis, 5, dist. XLVII, reports that latter part of the canon, but only the former part, which restrains clerics by degradation.

Thus, as regards clerics, already among the canons which are called apostolic, canon 44⁷ establishes thus: “Let a bishop or deacon exacting usuries from debtors either cease, or certainly be condemned.” Then the Council of Arles, at which, in the year 314, the whole Western Church assembled, has the following: “Concerning ministers who lend at interest, it has pleased us that they be made to abstain according to the form divinely given” (Mansi, vol. 2, col. 472). We shall furthermore give canon 17 of the First Council of Nicaea (325): “Since many who are established under the rule pursue avarice and shameful gains . . . giving a loan, they exact hundredths: the holy and great Synod has justly decreed that, if anyone be found after this definition receiving usuries, or making some contrivance or transacting business in any manner whatever, or exacting hemiolia, that is, one and a half,⁸ or devising any such thing whatsoever for the sake of shameful gain, he be cast down from the clergy and be made foreign to the rule” (Mansi, vol. 2, col. 615).

⁷ Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, vol. 1, p. 788 (1st ed.), reports from Drey that this canon, of unknown origin, is among the most ancient. In the article Ueber den Rigorismus (Quartalschrift, Tübingen, 1841, p. 413), however, he regards it as later than St. Cyprian; but Rev. Dr. Funk, Zins und Wucher (Tübinger Quartalschrift, 1875, p. 224), assigns it to the middle of the fourth century.

⁸ A kind of sesquialteral usury, permitted by the law of Constantine, by which someone, for ten measures of grain given, for example, in winter, received fifteen at harvest. This usury is often mentioned by the Fathers together with hundredths (12 percent).

2. IN THE MIDDLE AGES, a) the usuries which the African Council (First Council of Carthage, year 345), canon XII (Mansi, vol. 3, col. 149), and the Council of Aachen in the year 789, canon 32 (Mansi, vol. 13, appendix, col. 165), had already declared worthy of reproof even in laymen, were entirely prohibited.

In the acts of the Council of Calchuth (in England, 787-788), the bishops say universally: “We have also prohibited usuries”; and the Council of Meaux (845), canon 55, more expressly commands the bishops that they “restrain all Christians from usuries, and pronounce a canonical sentence against those whom they cannot restrain otherwise” (Mansi, vol. 14, col. 831).

The matter becomes more manifest from the Corpus of Canon Law. α) These statements of Gratian, under question 3 of Cause XIV, at the beginning: “That to pursue gains beyond the principal is to exact usuries . . . is proved”; and under canon 4: “Behold, it is shown clearly that whatever is exacted beyond the principal is usury”; and under question 4 of the same Cause, at the beginning: “That neither clerics nor laymen are permitted to exact usuries . . . is proved,” show that the author of the Decree was persuaded that every usury in any person whatever is illicit. β) Moreover, in book 5, title 19, of the Decretals, the decretals of Alexander III (1159-1181) and Urban III (1185-1187) openly reprove the request or receipt of usuries, whoever may have been their author, as contrary to the pages of both Testaments; and they command the restitution of that shameful gain. Cf., for example, chaps. 2, 5, 7, 9, 10, 13. Indeed, in chap. Super eo, 4, Alexander III denies that he can dispense in this matter.

b) Then, in the general Councils themselves, the Third Lateran Council (1179) and the Second Council of Lyons (1274), usurers were assailed, that is, those for whom the exaction of usuries was like a trade and a customary manner of life.

“Because,” says the Third Lateran Council, canon 25 (Hardouin, vol. 7, col. 1683), “in nearly all places so great a (crime?) of usury has become established that many, other occupations having been set aside, practice usuries as though licitly, and do not attend to how they are condemned by the pages of both Testaments,” it therefore deprives manifest usurers of communion and ecclesiastical burial, and prohibits the receipt of their offerings. These sanctions were confirmed by constitution 26 of Gregory X in the Second Council of Lyons, where the Fathers, in canon 26, “desiring to restrain the abyss of usuries, which devours souls and exhausts resources,” at the same time prohibit the renting of houses to foreigners who wish to lease them for practicing usuries (Mansi, vol. 24, col. 99).

The plague nevertheless raging, in the Council of Vienne (1311) it was necessary to condemn the administrations of places which, by their statutes, sometimes confirmed by oath, approved the exaction of usuries. Going still farther, the Council added a certain doctrinal declaration in these words: “Indeed, if anyone shall have fallen into that error, so that he presumes pertinaciously to affirm that to practice usuries⁹ is not a sin, we decree that he be punished as a heretic.” Chap. Ex gravi, sole chapter, Clementines, On Usury (V, 5).

⁹ Observe that these words do not apply to individual agreements concerning interest to be paid, but require some habit; nor, moreover, is it defined whether the practice of usuries (la pratique de l’usure) is reproved by natural or positive law, or as unjust or as contrary to charity. At that time, however, there was a manifold cause for condemning it.

c) At the same time it was necessary to restrain the devices and frauds which were committed against the laws even by clerics, and to repress disguised usuries. Cf., for example, bk. 5 of the Decretals, tit. 19, chaps. 1, 2, 6, and many things in Gaggia, article cited.

Worthy of note are the words by which Sixtus V, in the constitution Detestabilis avaritiae, condemning a certain kind of partnerships tainted with the stain of usury, describes this plague: “The abyss of usuries,” he says, “hateful to God and men, condemned by the sacred canons, and contrary to Christian charity” (Bullarium, pt. 4, vol. 4, p. 263).

3. For a sufficiently long time it was in some manner granted to the Jews that they might practice profitable lending at interest.

This tolerance, however, or impunity in the external forum, which does not imply approval,¹⁰ was denied to them by Urban III (1185-1187), chap. 12, Decretals, On Usury (V, 19), and by King St. Louis, no. 23 among the Statutes of St. Louis reread at the Council of Béziers in the year 1255 (Mansi, vol. 23, col. 882). The words of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), canon 67, restrain them only from grave and immoderate usuries (Mansi, vol. 22, cols. 1055-1056); the gloss, however (on chap. 18, Decretals, V, 19, at the word immoderatasve), and the interpreters of the law were unwilling, from the contrary sense, to concede moderate usuries to them.¹¹ Besides, whether they acquiesced in such things may be doubted. However this law is to be interpreted, the Jews did not therefore cease from asking usuries, and certain somewhat more recent indults permitted them even no slight lending at interest. Rev. Gaggia, article cited, pt. 2, p. 45, affirms that the Jews were nevertheless finally comprehended even by the common law.

¹⁰ Cf. Schmalzgrueber, place cited, nos. 17-18.

¹¹ Rev. Gaggia, article cited, p. 536, note, records that their usuries were, according to the regions, 40-90 percent, 86 percent, and 100-180 percent. Scipione Maffei, p. 140, reports a brief of Gregory XIII (1572-1575), defining their maximum exaction at 18 percent.

4. a) In the canonical laws themselves, formal mention is not made of any moderate lending at interest, such as today openly comes into common use. On the contrary, the monuments of that time and the very tenor of the decrees show that biting usuries, by which the poor were afflicted, were then before their eyes.

The hundredth payable each month can be regarded as the minimum usury (12 percent. Cf. Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, vol. 1, p. 406, 1st ed.). Rev. Gaggia, p. 527, records lending at 23, 25, 37, and 40 percent in the fourteenth century. The cited decrees of the Councils of Nicaea, Lateran III and IV, and Lyons II reveal grave usuries.

Nor do these laws openly declare that every usury is opposed to justice. Scarcely any indication is had even of an extrinsic title, as, for example, chap. Naviganti, 19, Decretals, On Usury (bk. 5, tit. 19).¹²

¹² The genuine reading seems to require that the first sentence of that chapter be posited as denying rather than affirming. Otherwise, the solution is difficult and scarcely coheres with what follows.

b) But the Scholastic theologians and canonists perfected these rationales; and, inquiring into the motives and modes, they soon handed down with common voice: α) That it is per se repugnant to the nature of a loan for consumption that it be the cause of exacting interest; β) that, therefore, by this title any usury whatever is opposed to justice; γ) that there are nevertheless titles extrinsic to the loan for consumption on account of which it is permitted to stipulate more than what was given; δ) and that, moreover, there are other contracts—I mean the rent contract (census) and partnership—by which someone can make a just profit from his money.

Already in St. Thomas every rationale of usuries which are asked on account of the loan for consumption itself is condemned as injustice, and he deduces this without difficulty from the principles of equality to be preserved. Nor does the Subtle Doctor dissent, so that we have the consensus of both schools. The classical theologians of the Society of Jesus, such as Molina, Lessius, and Cardinal de Lugo, places cited, afterward assent to these. The latter, however, in no. 9, admits that the matter is subject to difficulties and is not gathered clearly from the Scriptures.

Among the canonists, the matter is no less agreed. But although already in St. Raymond, Summa, bk. 2, tit. 7, there occurs that definition of usury which embraces every interest,¹³ they did not thus immediately discover the argument for its dishonesty. Thus Innocent IV († 1254), Apparatus on the Five Books of the Decretals, on bk. 5, tit. 19, exposition of the rubric, after he has said that usuries are condemned by both Testaments, argues from the infinite evils which permission to lend at interest would bring; but he adds: “Some also say that usury was prohibited more because it would be contrary to the charity and piety by which I am bound to aid my neighbor than on account of the evils which follow.” Henry of Susa, called Hostiensis († 1271), in the Summa aurea, under the same title, defines usury even more precisely than St. Raymond: “Whatever is added to the payment of the thing loaned on account of the use of the thing itself, an agreement having been interposed, or this intention having been held in the contract, or an exaction having been made afterward.” He brings forward these rationales why it is illicit: that a loan for consumption contains a transfer of ownership, and that there is no use of the thing distinct from its consumption. Abbas Panormitanus († 1453), Reading on the Decretals, under the rubric of the same title, having related the rationale of Innocent IV, judges that he argues better from the fact that lending at interest is contrary to the nature of things. The interpreters of the law therefore began to use rationales similar to those of the theologians. Cf. Pirhing, Reiffenstuel, and Schmalzgrueber, places cited.

¹³ “Usury is profit owed or exacted by agreement from a loan for consumption.” He himself says that usuries are prohibited by natural law.

c) Benedict XIV approved this doctrine of the school in the celebrated encyclical Vix pervenit (November 1, 1745), in which, having first assembled a gathering of theologians, he set forth and defined with the greatest care the points to be held in this matter. The occasion for writing, however, was the controversies which had arisen over a contract of loan for consumption with a stipulation of 4 percent interest, entered into around the year 1740 by the city of Verona; and, by name, as it seems, the study of Scipione Maffei, which he had dedicated to the Pontiff on account of the bond of friendship by which he was joined to him. Nevertheless, the Holy Pontiff declares that he condemns no particular contract, and he reproves no one, but proposes the matters dogmatically. Observe, however, that those letters were sent only to the bishops of Italy. Indeed, long afterward, on July 29, 1836, the Holy Office, with the approval of Gregory XVI, seems to have declared incidentally that those letters regarded the universal Church.¹⁴ Yet those letters could not thereby become an infallible definition. Therefore, we judge that they possess very grave authority, but not the supreme authority.

¹⁴ This declaration, mentioned in Lehmkuhl, vol. 1, no. 1093, note, is found in the second Spanish edition of Gury-Ballerini’s Moral Theology, I, 849, note, and is as follows: “Wednesday, July 29, 1836, in the general congregation of the Sacred Roman and Universal Inquisition, held in the convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva before the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Cardinals, General Inquisitors against heretical depravity, the doubt having been proposed, the same Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lords said: ‘The petitioner shall conduct himself according to the doctrine contained in Benedict XIV’s encyclical Vix pervenit, which regards the universal Church.’” But, besides the fact that the final sentence can per se be referred equally to the doctrine contained and to the encyclical, it is already evident that no excessive force should be attributed to this rescript from the fact that it was omitted in the instruction in which, in the year 1873, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith wished to collect all the resolutions of the Sacred Congregations concerning profit from a loan for consumption, together with the encyclical Vix pervenit, for the use of bishops and apostolic vicars and prefects. Cf. Collectanea of the Propagation of the Faith, no. 2140.

The doctrine, moreover, is contained in five points. “I. That kind of sin which is called usury, and which has its proper seat and place in the contract of loan for consumption, is situated in this: that someone, from the loan for consumption itself, which by its own nature asks only that as much be returned as was received, wills that more be returned to him than was received; and therefore contends that some profit beyond the principal is owed to him by reason of the loan for consumption itself. Every profit of this kind, therefore, which exceeds the principal, is illicit and usurious.

“II. Nor indeed, for purging this stain, can any aid be summoned, either from the fact that this profit is not excessive and too great, but moderate; not great, but slight; or from the fact that he from whom that profit is demanded solely on account of the loan for consumption is not poor, but rich; and is not going to leave the sum lent to him idle, but is going to expend it most usefully for enlarging his fortune, either by purchasing new estates or by conducting profitable business. For whoever, once that equality has been posited, does not yet fear to exact something more from anyone by force of the loan for consumption itself, to which satisfaction has already been made by an equal amount, is proved to act against the law of the loan for consumption, which necessarily consists in the equality of the thing given and the thing returned. Consequently, if he has received it, he will be bound to restitution from the obligation of that justice which they call commutative, and to which it belongs both sacredly to preserve the equality proper to each human contract and exactly to repair it when it has not been preserved.”

III and IV. In these points it is conceded that compensations under some extrinsic title can justly be sought, and that there are very often at hand other just modes of employing money fruitfully through contracts of a nature entirely different from a loan for consumption. Therefore, Catholic doctrine is in no way an obstacle to the prosperity of commerce.

V. There it is denied that an occasion of this kind for making a just profit from money is always at hand, so that in practice it would always be permitted to receive a moderate increase. “If anyone should think thus, he will without doubt oppose not only the divine documents and the judgment of the Catholic Church concerning usury, but even common human sense itself and natural reason.” Reasons are added: both because we are often bound to aid our neighbor by a simple loan for consumption, and because often “apart from the one loan for consumption, there can be room for no other true and just contract.”

At the same time, the condemned propositions which pertain here must be reported.

I. Alexander VII, on March 18, 1666, among the propositions condemned and prohibited at least as scandalous, presents this one as no. 42: “It is licit for one who lends to exact something beyond the principal if he binds himself not to demand back the principal until a certain time.”

II. Innocent XI, among the 65 propositions which were similarly reproved and condemned by him on March 2, 1679, “at least as scandalous and pernicious in practice,” has two concerning our matter:

a) No. 41: “Since ready money is to be valued more highly than money to be paid, and there is no one who does not value present money more highly than future money, the creditor can exact something beyond the principal from the borrower, and under that title be excused from usury”;

b) No. 42: “It is not usury when something beyond the principal is exacted as owed from benevolence and gratitude, but only if it is exacted as owed from justice.”

5. THE MILDER DISCIPLINE. a) It was prepared by α) The institution

of the Mounts of Piety (Montes Pietatis),¹⁵ which arose in Italy in the fifteenth century to aid the poor, oppressed by the exactions of the Jews, by giving money as a loan against a pledge received. They soon began to ask some small interest to compensate for labor and the other expenses; afterward also, the Mixed Mounts (Montes mixti) did so in order more easily to gather money which could then be lent to the poor.

¹⁵ Zech, Moderated Rigor, etc., in dissertation II, wrote many things concerning this argument which it is useful to know. He judges that the Mounts were so called from the mass of money or provisions gathered there for the use of the poor, and defines them: “A sum of money or of other things consumable by use, collected for the aid of the poor so that it may be lent to them under pledge” (§§ 260-261); and he rightly notes that the practice of gathering masses must be traced back to ancient times. Hefele-Hergenröther, Conciliengeschichte, vol. 8, p. 545, speaks precisely concerning the Mounts. Cf. also Besse, Le Bienheureux Bernardin de Feltre [Blessed Bernardino of Feltre], vol. 2.

This request for interest was the origin of an acute controversy even among religious Orders. The religious of St. Francis, especially those then called of the Observance, led the ranks of the defenders, who prevailed in the cause, so that by the constitution Inter multiplices of the Fifth Lateran Council (1512-1517), those Mounts in which merely compensation for expenses was exacted were solemnly approved. That title for exacting an increase was indeed foreign to lending at interest strictly so called, but at the same time it presented an image of moderate interest. More, as is evident, was disputed concerning the Mixed Mounts, which some reproved, while others attempted to excuse them by various rationales, especially when the common use of depositing money fruitfully in this way in the Mounts had become established in Italy. (Cf. Zech, no. 339 ff.)

β) Various purchases of rent contracts (census), which at first appearance seemed similar to lending at interest and made the fruitful use of money more frequent.

γ) Civil statutes or customs which in various places granted to all the exaction of moderate interest.

Thus, already in the sixteenth century, a custom¹⁶ of tolerating the demand of 5 percent is acknowledged in Germany. (Zech, § 248.) Certainly, not all agreed concerning its force and efficacy. Zech, § 252, explains it thus: that these usuries are owed only after delay and from the presumption of an extrinsic title. But Pichler, S.J. (1670-1750), who obtained for himself the highest praise in interpreting canon law, had already attributed a more universal force to law or custom, so that, from a public cause, it could render moderate lending at interest licit. For: “Lucrative usury is prohibited by natural and divine law conditionally and when fraud or avarice or cruelty intervenes; likewise when the usury is excessive, or biting, as it is called, or excessively burdensome with the oppression of one’s neighbor . . . but not absolutely, and when fraud, avarice, oppression of one’s neighbor, and injury to charity are absent, and moderate usury is exacted according to the statutes and customs of places.” Thus he himself, on bk. 5 of the Decretals, tit. 19, no. 11. Pasqualigo († 1664) of the Theatine Order had preceded him and had conceded a similar faculty to the Supreme Pontiff in Moral Decisions, 183.

¹⁶ Concerning this custom and the controversies joined with it, it is quite useful to read the recent study of Rev. Fr. Duhr, S.J., which he published in the Innsbruck periodical Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, 1900, pp. 209-248, under the title Die deutschen Jesuiten im Fünfpercent-Streit des 16 Jahrhunderts [The German Jesuits in the Five-Percent Controversy of the Sixteenth Century]. He connects the beginnings of the practice of lending at 5 percent with the growth of business for which the discovery of America provided the occasion; and he learnedly explains, together with the anxieties of confessors—who, as though compelled, began to respond more mildly while the more severe discipline was retained in the schools—the excuses sought by penitents, the questions asked, the ambiguous responses: in brief, all the customary confusion and disturbance of affairs in transition. In the third General Congregation of the Society of Jesus itself, held in 1573, a special examination of this moral question was made; and from the fourth, in the year 1581, there issued the Treatise concerning the Contract of Five Percent, Composed by Common Consent of the Fathers Appointed for This, in the Month of April 1581. Rev. Fr. Duhr says that the fruit of these controversies was the exposition concerning the loan for consumption and suspect contracts made by Gregory of Valencia in volume 3 of his Scholastic Theology.

δ) The very growth of business and commerce.

Already Lessius, chap. 20, nos. 123-127, permitted any merchant, even one for whom no profit ceased therefrom, to exact a price for the obligation of being without money for a certain time. For among merchants that burden is per se capable of valuation at a price.

b) It is formally contained in several declarations, both of the Sacred Penitentiary and of the Holy Office with the approval of the Supreme Pontiff, which were issued beginning in the year 1830. In these, without regard to a special extrinsic title, or even to civil law, it is declared that the faithful, even ecclesiastics and religious, who have lent money at moderate interest are not to be disturbed, provided that they are prepared to abide by the mandates of the Holy See. The Holy See, however, was unwilling to define its just amount universally.

Those responses are found either in the Collectio Lacensis, vol. 6, appendix to the Synod of Pondicherry, col. 677; or in the Collectanea of the Propagation of the Faith, no. 2140 ff.; or in the Enchiridion of Rev. Fr. Bucceroni. Observe, for example, the response of the Holy Office to the Bishop of Rennes, August 18, 1830, together with the response of the Holy Office to the Bishop of Viviers, who wondered that no mention had been made of the title of civil law in the rescript described above (that response, August 31, 1831, is found in Gury-Ballerini, vol. 1, no. 878, or Lehmkuhl, vol. 1, no. 1103, note 1); then the responses of the Sacred Penitentiary of February 11, 1832, and of the Holy Office of January 17, 1838, March 26, 1840, and February 28, 1871.

361. Concerning usury in civil laws. 1. Greek and Roman laws permitted usuries.

Concerning the gravity of usuries among the Greeks, cf., for example, Maffei, p. 76 ff. Among the Romans (cf. Maffei, p. 91 ff.), the law of the Twelve Tables decreed: “Let no one practice lending at more than the unciarian rate,” and a lawful rate was established by several laws. By a plebiscite, all interest was abolished; afterward it was restored, and in Roman law until Justinian (who imposed a greater limit) the (monthly) hundredth usuries were permitted (they were called bloodstained, for they equal 12 percent). Nevertheless, a loan for consumption in Roman law did not by its nature admit payment, but an interest-bearing loan was contracted by an added stipulation.

2. Christian laws were for a long time accommodated to canonical norms. We have seen, however, that in Germany there had already long been a departure from the ancient severity, and usuries were tolerated or even permitted either without limit or within certain limits. In France, on the contrary, the matter was treated more severely than in Italy itself, and lending at interest was prohibited by law until the decree of October 3-12, 1789.

3. In our laws, a loan for consumption is still regarded as gratuitous per se, so that a positive stipulation of interest is required.

For a long time, however (from the French law of September 3, 1807), the parties could not exceed the legal rate, namely, 5 percent in “civil” matters and 6 percent in commercial matters. But in France, by the law of January 13, 1886, the restrictions in commercial cases were removed; while in Belgium, by the law of May 5, 1865, the parties can agree freely (whatever the cause may have been) concerning usuries beyond the legal rate, which by the law of December 20, 1890, is 4½ percent in civil matters and 5½ percent in commercial matters. Nevertheless, article 494 of the Belgian Penal Code punishes the wicked custom of abusing the passions and weakness of the borrower in exacting interest.

According to the recent code of Germany: a) the gratuitousness of the loan for consumption is retained insofar as usuries are not owed unless from an added stipulation (art. 608); b) lawful interest is per se 4 percent; c) if the stipulation was for interest greater than 6 percent, it is open to the debtor, after six months have elapsed, to give notice of the repayment of the principal after six months; nor can that faculty of freeing himself in this manner from paying such great usuries be removed by a contrary agreement. This rule, however, does not regard debts payable to bearer (au porteur). d) With the exception of certain banking institutions, an agreement made in advance for renewed interest (anatocisme [compound interest]) is invalid. Cf. arts. 246-248.

But today there is dispute in various directions concerning the very usefulness of laws which define the maximum interest and concerning the mode of restraining excessive usuries. Cf., for example, V. Brants, L’usure

dans la législation contemporaine [Usury in Contemporary Legislation] (Bulletins de l’Académie royale de Belgique, 3rd series, vol. 30, no. 12, 1895).

362. Concerning usury according to the opinions of the doctors. 1. The ancient wise men gave little approval to usuries.

Thus Plato (Laws, V, 742); Aristotle (Politics, I, chaps. 10-11), who, with a mind averse to every profitable exchange of money, certainly placed profit from usuries in the lowest place and especially regarded it as foreign to nature; Aristophanes (Clouds, v. 1283 ff.); Cato, whom Cicero, On Duties, II, chap. 25, reports to have equated lending at interest with killing; Seneca, On Benefits, bk. 7, chap. 10; Plutarch, On Avoiding Debt. Grotius, however, judges that these men “have regard not so much to what is intrinsic to a loan for consumption as to what generally accompanies it and follows it (usury?)” (On the Law of War and Peace, bk. 2, chap. 12, § 20, no. 2).

2. Concerning the consensus of the Scholastic doctors and canonists, we have already spoken in the preceding number.

3. The schismatic Greeks, at least from the sixteenth century, did not regard usuries as intrinsically illicit. (Devoti, Canonical Institutes, bk. 4, tit. 16, § 4.)

4. Not all the innovators of the sixteenth century abandoned Catholic doctrine in this matter, and Luther, Melanchthon, and Zwingli condemned lending at interest. Calvin, on the contrary, permitted usuries to be exacted from a rich man. His disciple Salmasius reduced Calvin’s doctrine to a system in two treatises, On Usuries and On Bankers’ Interest. The study On Usuries by Charles Dumoulin (Carolus Molinaeus) is also very well known.

5. Afterward it came about that Catholic men themselves seemed to doubt either the force of certain rationales or the truth of the doctrine received until then.

We have already indicated what Pichler thought. Another canonist, Engel, O.S.B. († 1674), on bk. 5, tit. 19, § 1, no. 8, admits that the rationales commonly brought forward to demonstrate the repugnance of usuries with nature are subtle, so that he would rather argue from the evils which they produce for the needy and from the impiety of converting “an act of charity and of human society, which consists in the giving of a loan for consumption, to one’s own profit and another’s loss.”

In Belgium, in the eighteenth century, a great controversy concerning usuries was stirred up by the Jansenists; and a certain pastor of Delft, named Broedersen, who affected the name of Catholic but was a Jansenist, in the treatise On Licit and Illicit Usuries acceded to the opinion of Calvin. The eminent Catholic man Scipione Maffei also professed a similar doctrine in Dell’impiego del danaro [On the Employment of Money].

Benedict XIV gravely censures Catholic men who assented to the new opinions, in the work On the Synod, bk. 10, chap. 4, no. 2, where he has the following: “Every profit from a loan for consumption, precisely by reason of the loan for consumption, . . . is usurious and illicit by every law, namely, natural, divine, and ecclesiastical: this has been and is the perpetual doctrine of the Catholic Church, confirmed by the unanimous agreement of all Councils, Fathers, and theologians.” Lessius, chap. 20, no. 23 ff.; Cardinal de Lugo, vol. 2, disp. 25, no. 8; and Schmalzgrueber, on bk. 5, tit. 19, no. 6, to omit others, hold plainly that it is de fide that usury is illicit, at least by positive law; but they regard it as in no way doubtful that it is prohibited by natural law and positive divine law. Molina, vol. 2, disp. 304 (to whom Cardinal d’Annibale appeals wrongly), is of the same opinion; Bossuet, work cited, in his fifth proposition, asserts that it must be held de fide that usuries are prohibited to all under the New Law; while Zech, diss. 1, no. 93, also concludes “that usurious depravity must be numbered among divinely revealed truths and, according to the judgment of the Church, the illicitness of usuries pertains to the dogmas of faith.”

Therefore, we cannot but marvel at how Cardinal d’Annibale, vol. 2, no. 533, wrote: “Therefore, by no manifest law, whether natural or divine, is it established that usuries are illicit per se, or otherwise vitiated. Indeed, the contrary is rather conjectured from the manner of acting of the Catholic Church.”