CHURCH HISTORY.
The Church, from the time of the apostles, was emphatic in its
denunciation of usury.
Schaff-Herzog says: "All the apostolic fathers condemned the taking of
usury." The Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge declares the same.
Chrysostom said: "Nothing is baser in this world than usury, nothing
more cruel."
Basil describes a scene so real that we can scarcely realize that he
wrote over fifteen hundred years ago. After stating the usurer's
protestations of having no money, to the victim, who seeks a loan
without interest, he says: "Then the suppliant mentions interest and
utters the word security. All is changed. The frown is relaxed; with a
genial smile he recounts old family connections. Now it is 'My friend,
I will see if I have any money by me. Yes, there is that very sum
which a man, I know, has left in my hands in deposit for profit. He
named a very heavy interest. However, I will certainly take something
off and give it to you on better terms.' With pretenses like this he
fawns on the wretched victim and induces him to swallow the barb."
Of the man who has borrowed on interest, he says: "At first he is
bright and joyous and shines with another's splendor * * * now night
brings no rest, no sun is bright. He hates the days that are hurrying
on, for time as it runs adds the interest to its tale."
The fathers unanimously condemned the taking of interest, Tertullian,
Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome can be quoted against it. The
popes followed the teachings of the fathers and forbade it under
severe penalties. The priests guilty of this sin were degraded from
their orders. The laymen found guilty were excommunicated. Interest
paid could be reclaimed, not only from the usurer but from his heirs.
A bargain, though confirmed by an oath never to claim back the
interest paid, was declared not binding. This action of the popes was
confirmed by councils.
Charlemagne, in France, forbid the taking of usury either by priests
or laity.
A council at Westminster (1126) approved the degradation of all
clergy, who were guilty of this practice.
Archbishop Sands said: "This canker (usury) hath corrupted all
England."
A council in Vienna (1311) reaffirmed the denunciations of previous
popes and councils, and then adds: "If any shall obstinately persist
in the error of presuming to affirm that the taking of usury is not a
sin, we decree that he shall be punished as a heretic."
There is no record of the repeal of any of these edicts.
The leaders of the Protestant reformation also denounced usury.
Luther was violent in his opposition, using the strongest language he
could command. "Whoever eats up, robs and steals the nourishment of
another, commits as great a murder, as he who carves a man or utterly
undoes him. Such does a usurer, and he sits the while on his stool,
when he ought rather to be hanging from the gallows."
Melancthon, Beza and others are accounted against usury.
The decisions of Ecclesiastical Councils were numerous and emphatic
until the seventeenth century. Since that time interest taking has
become common, all but universal, but there is no record found
anywhere of its direct approval by any ecclesiastical body. The Church
has come to tolerate it but has never given it official approval.
Usury has not been included in any creed or confession of faith, nor
has it been directly approved by any council or general assembly.
The truth has not been left in any age without its witness. There have
always been those more or less prominent in the Church who contended
that it was unjust and oppressive. Some of them have been of
world-wide distinction. The writer has a letter written him by John
Clark Ridpath, the historian, expressing his agreement with the views
presented in these pages. Another of these is brilliant John Ruskin,
recently deceased. Quotations from him will close this review.
"I have not so perverted my soul nor palsied my brain as to expect to
be advantaged by that adhesion (usury). I do not expect that because I
have gathered much to find Nature or man gathering more for me; to
find eighteen pence in my box in the morning instead of the shilling
as a reward of my continence, or to make an income of my Koran by
lending it to poor scholars. If I think he can read it and will
carefully turn the leaves by the outside, he is welcome to read it for
nothing."
"Thus in all other possible or conceivable cases, the moment our
capital is increased by having lent it, be it but the estimation of a
hair, that hair-breadth of increase is usury, just as much as stealing
a farthing is theft no less than stealing a million."