(449) For St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nyssa, see French translation
of their diatribes in Homelies contre les Usuriers, Paris, Hachette,
1861-'62, especially p. 30 of St. Basil. For some doubtful reservations
by St. Augustine, see Murray, History of Usury. For St. Ambrose, see De
Officiis, lib. iii, cap. ii, in Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. xvi; also the De
Tobia, in Migne, vol. xiv. For St. Augustine, see De Bapt. contr Donat.,
lib. iv, cap. ix, in Migne, vol. xliii. For Lactantius, see his Opera,
Leyden, 1660, p. 608. For Cyprian, see his Testimonies against the Jews,
translated by Wallis, book iii, article 48. For St. Jerome, see his Com.
in Ezekiel, xviii, 8, in Migne, vol. xxv, pp. 170 et seq. For Leo the
Great, see his letter to the bishops of various provinces of Italy,
cited in the Jus. Can., cap. vii, can. xiv, qu. 4. For very fair
statements of the attitude of the fathers on this question, see Addis
and Arnold, Catholic Dictionary, London, 1884, and Smith and Cheetham,
Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, London, 1875-'80; in each, under
article Usury.
This unanimity of the fathers of the Church brought about a crystallization of hostility to interest-bearing loans into numberless decrees of popes and councils and kings and legislatures throughout Christendom during more than fifteen hundred years, and the canon law was shaped in accordance with these. At first these were more especially directed against the clergy, but we soon find them extending to the laity. These prohibitions were enforced by the Council of Arles in 314, and a modern Church apologist insists that every great assembly of the Church, from the Council of Elvira in 306 to that of Vienne in 1311, inclusive, solemnly condemned lending money at interest. The greatest rulers under the sway of the Church—Justinian, in the Empire of the East; Charlemagne, in the Empire of the West; Alfred, in England; St. Louis, in France—yielded fully to this dogma. In the ninth century Alfred went so far as to confiscate the estates of money-lenders, denying them burial in Consecrated ground; and similar decrees were made in other parts of Europe. In the twelfth century the Greek Church seems to have relaxed its strictness somewhat, but the Roman Church grew more severe. St. Anselm proved from the Scriptures that the taking of interest is a breach of the Ten Commandments. Peter Lombard, in his Sentences, made the taking of interest purely and simply theft. St. Bernard, reviving religious earnestness in the Church, took the same view. In 1179 the Third Council of the Lateran decreed that impenitent money-lenders should be excluded from the altar, from absolution in the hour of death, and from Christian burial. Pope Urban III reiterated the declaration that the passage in St. Luke forbade the taking of any interest whatever. Pope Alexander III declared that the prohibition in this matter could never be suspended by dispensation.
In the thirteenth century Pope Gregory IX dealt an especially severe blow at commerce by his declaration that even to advance on interest the money necessary in maritime trade was damnable usury; and this was fitly followed by Gregory X, who forbade Christian burial to those guilty of this practice; the Council of Lyons meted out the same penalty. This idea was still more firmly fastened upon the world by the two greatest thinkers of the time: first, by St. Thomas Aquinas, who knit it into the mind of the Church by the use of the Scriptures and of Aristotle; and next by Dante, who pictured money-lenders in one of the worst regions of hell.
About the beginning of the fourteenth century the "Subtile Doctor" of the Middle Ages, Duns Scotus, gave to the world an exquisite piece of reasoning in evasion of the accepted doctrine; but all to no purpose: the Council of Vienne, presided over by Pope Clement V, declared that if any one "shall pertinaciously presume to affirm that the taking of interest for money is not a sin, we decree him to be a heretic, fit for punishment." This infallible utterance bound the dogma with additional force on the conscience of the universal Church.
Nor was this a doctrine enforced by rulers only; the people were no less strenuous. In 1390 the city authorities of London enacted that, "if any person shall lend or put into the hands of any person gold or silver to receive gain thereby, such person shall have the punishment for usurers." And in the same year the Commons prayed the king that the laws of London against usury might have the force of statutes throughout the realm.
In the fifteenth century the Council of the Church at Salzburg excluded from communion and burial any who took interest for money, and this was a very general rule throughout Germany.
An exception was, indeed, sometimes made: some canonists held that Jews might be allowed to take interest, since they were to be damned in any case, and their monopoly of money-lending might prevent Christians from losing their souls by going into the business. Yet even the Jews were from time to time punished for the crime of usury; and, as regards Christians, punishment was bestowed on the dead as well as the living—the bodies of dead money-lenders being here and there dug up and cast out of consecrated ground.
The popular preachers constantly declaimed against all who took interest. The medieval anecdote books for pulpit use are especially full on this point. Jacques de Vitry tells us that demons on one occasion filled a dead money-lender's mouth with red-hot coins; Cesarius of Heisterbach declared that a toad was found thrusting a piece of money into a dead usurer's heart; in another case, a devil was seen pouring molten gold down a dead money-lender's throat.(450)
(450) For an enumeration of councils condemning the taking of interest
for money, see Liegeois, Essai sur l'Histoire et la Legislation de
l'Usure, Paris, 1865, p. 78; also the Catholic Dictionary as above. For
curious additional details and sources regarding mediaeval horror of
usurers, see Ducange, Glossarium, etc., article Caorcini. T he date 306,
for the Council of Elvira is that assigned by Hefele. For the decree
of Alexander III, see citation from the Latin text in Lecky. For a
long catalogue of ecclesiastical and civil decrees against taking of
interest, see Petit, Traite de l'Usure, Paris, 1840. For the reasoning
at the bottom of this, see Cunningham, Christian Opinion on Usury,
London, 1884. For the Salzburg decrees, see Zillner, Salzburgusche
Culturgeschichte, p. 232; and for Germany generally, see Neumann,
Geschichte des Wuchers in Deutschland, Halle, 1865, especially pp. 22 et
seq; also Roscher, National-Oeconomis. For effect of mistranslation
of the passage of Luke in the Vulgate, see Dollinger, p. 170, and
especially pp. 224, 225 For the capitularies of Charlemagne against
usury, see Liegeois, p. 77. For Gregory X and the Council of Lyons, see
Sextus Decretalium liber, pp. 669 et. seq. For Peter Lombard, see his
Lib. Sententiarum, III, dist. xxxvii, 3. For St. Thomas Aquinas, see his
works, Migne, vol. iii, Paris 1889, quaestio 78, pp. 587 et seq., citing
the Scriptures and Aristotle, and especially developing Aristotle's
metaphysical idea regarding the "barrenness" of money. For a very good
summary of St. Thomas's ideas, see Pearson. pp. 30 et seq. For Dante,
see in canto xi of the Inferno a revelation of the amazing depth of the
hostility to the taking of interest. For the London law of 1390 and the
petition to the king, see Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and
Commerce, pp. 210, 326; also the Abridgment of the Records in the Tower
of London, p. 339. For the theory that Jews, being damned already, might
be allowed to practice usury, see Liegeois, Histoire de l'Usure, p. 82.
For St. Bernard's view, see Epist. CCCLXIII, in Migne, vol. clxxxii,
p. 567. For ideas and anecdotes for preachers' use, see Joannes a San
Geminiano, Summa de Exemplis, Antwerp, 1629, fol. 493, a; also the
edition of Venice, 1584, ff. 132, 159; but especially, for multitudes
of examples, see the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, edited by Prof. T.
F. Crane, of Cornell University, London, 1890, pp. 203 et seq. For the
canon law in regard to interest, see a long line of authorities cited in
Die Wucherfrage, St. Louis, 1869, pp. 92 et seq., and especially Decret.
Gregor., lib v, lit. 19, cap. iii, and Clementin., lib. v, lit. 5, sec.
2; see also the Corpus Juris Canonici, Paris, 1618, pp. 227, 228.
For the position of the English Church, see Gibson's Corpus Juris
Ecclesiastici Anglicani, pp. 1070, 1071, 1106.
This theological hostility to the taking of interest was imbedded firmly in the canon law. Again and again it defined usury to be the taking of anything of value beyond the exact original amount of a loan; and under sanction of the universal Church it denounced this as a crime and declared all persons defending it to be guilty of heresy. What this meant the world knows but too well.