The middle of the fourth century marked the opening of a new period—'a period when oratorical denunciations are profuse, and when consequently philosophical speculation, though fairly active, is of too imaginative a character to be sufficiently definite.'[1] St. Basil's Homilies on the Fourteenth Psalm contain a violent denunciation of usury, the reasoning of which was repeated by St. Gregory of Nyssa[2] and St. Ambrose.[3] These three Fathers draw a terrible picture of the state of the poor debtor, who, harassed by his creditors, falls deeper and deeper into despair, until he finally commits suicide, or has to sell his children into slavery. Usury was therefore condemned by these Fathers as a sin against charity; the passage from St. Luke was looked on merely as a counsel in so far as it related to the repayment of the principal, but as a precept so far as it related to usury; but the notion that usury was in its very essence a sin against justice does not appear to have arisen. The natural sterility of money is referred to, but not developed; and it is suggested, though not categorically stated, that usury may be taken from wealthy debtors.[4]
[Footnote 1: Cleary, op. cit., p. 49.]
[Footnote 2: Contra Usurarios.]
[Footnote 3: De Tobia.]
[Footnote 4: Cleary, op. cit., p. 52.]
The other Fathers of the later period do not throw very much light on the question of how usury was regarded by the early Church. St. Hilary[1] and Jerome[2] still base their objection on the ground of its being an offence against charity; and St. Augustine, though he would like to make restitution of usury a duty, treats the matter from the same point of view.[3] On the other hand, there are to be found patristic utterances in favour of the legality of usury, and episcopal approbations of civil codes which permitted it.[4] The civil law did not attempt to suppress usury, but simply to keep it within due bounds.[5] The result of the patristic teaching therefore was on the whole unsatisfactory and inconclusive. 'Whilst patristic opinion,' says Dr. Cleary, 'is very pronounced in condemning usury, the condemnation is launched against it more because of its oppressiveness than for its intrinsic injustice. As Dr. Funk has pointed out, one can scarcely cite a single patristic opinion which can be said clearly to hold that usury is against justice, whilst there are, on the contrary, certain undercurrents of thought in many writers, and certain explicit statements in others, which tend to show that the Fathers would not have been prepared to deal so harshly with usurers, did usurers not treat their debtors so cruelly…. Of keen philosophical analysis there is none…. On the whole, we find the teachings of the Fathers crude and undeveloped.'[6]
[Footnote 1: In Ps. xiv.]
[Footnote 2: Ad Ezech.]
[Footnote 3: Cleary, op. cit., p. 56.]
[Footnote 4: Ibid. pp. 56-7.]