Whether, in Trading, It Is Lawful to Sell a Thing at a Higher Price
Than What Was Paid for It?
Objection 1: It would seem that it is not lawful, in trading, to sell
a thing for a higher price than we paid for it. For Chrysostom [*Hom.
xxxviii in the Opus Imperfectum, falsely ascribed to St. John
Chrysostom] says on Matt. 21:12: "He that buys a thing in order that
he may sell it, entire and unchanged, at a profit, is the trader who
is cast out of God's temple." Cassiodorus speaks in the same sense in
his commentary on Ps. 70:15, "Because I have not known learning, or
trading" according to another version [*The Septuagint]: "What is
trade," says he, "but buying at a cheap price with the purpose of
retailing at a higher price?" and he adds: "Such were the tradesmen
whom Our Lord cast out of the temple." Now no man is cast out of the
temple except for a sin. Therefore such like trading is sinful.
Obj. 2: Further, it is contrary to justice to sell goods at a higher
price than their worth, or to buy them for less than their value, as
shown above (A. 1). Now if you sell a thing for a higher price than
you paid for it, you must either have bought it for less than its
value, or sell it for more than its value. Therefore this cannot be
done without sin.
Obj. 3: Further, Jerome says (Ep. ad Nepot. lii): "Shun, as you would
the plague, a cleric who from being poor has become wealthy, or who,
from being a nobody has become a celebrity." Now trading would net
seem to be forbidden to clerics except on account of its sinfulness.
Therefore it is a sin in trading, to buy at a low price and to sell
at a higher price.
_On the contrary,_ Augustine commenting on Ps. 70:15, "Because I have
not known learning," [*Cf. Obj. 1] says: "The greedy tradesman
blasphemes over his losses; he lies and perjures himself over the
price of his wares. But these are vices of the man, not of the craft,
which can be exercised without these vices." Therefore trading is not
in itself unlawful.
_I answer that,_ A tradesman is one whose business consists in the
exchange of things. According to the Philosopher (Polit. i, 3),
exchange of things is twofold; one, natural as it were, and
necessary, whereby one commodity is exchanged for another, or money
taken in exchange for a commodity, in order to satisfy the needs of
life. Such like trading, properly speaking, does not belong to
tradesmen, but rather to housekeepers or civil servants who have to
provide the household or the state with the necessaries of life. The
other kind of exchange is either that of money for money, or of any
commodity for money, not on account of the necessities of life, but
for profit, and this kind of exchange, properly speaking, regards
tradesmen, according to the Philosopher (Polit. i, 3). The former
kind of exchange is commendable because it supplies a natural need:
but the latter is justly deserving of blame, because, considered in
itself, it satisfies the greed for gain, which knows no limit and
tends to infinity. Hence trading, considered in itself, has a certain
debasement attaching thereto, in so far as, by its very nature, it
does not imply a virtuous or necessary end. Nevertheless gain which
is the end of trading, though not implying, by its nature, anything
virtuous or necessary, does not, in itself, connote anything sinful
or contrary to virtue: wherefore nothing prevents gain from being
directed to some necessary or even virtuous end, and thus trading
becomes lawful. Thus, for instance, a man may intend the moderate
gain which he seeks to acquire by trading for the upkeep of his
household, or for the assistance of the needy: or again, a man may
take to trade for some public advantage, for instance, lest his
country lack the necessaries of life, and seek gain, not as an end,
but as payment for his labor.
Reply Obj. 1: The saying of Chrysostom refers to the trading which
seeks gain as a last end. This is especially the case where a man
sells something at a higher price without its undergoing any change.
For if he sells at a higher price something that has changed for the
better, he would seem to receive the reward of his labor.
Nevertheless the gain itself may be lawfully intended, not as a last
end, but for the sake of some other end which is necessary or
virtuous, as stated above.
Reply Obj. 2: Not everyone that sells at a higher price than he
bought is a tradesman, but only he who buys that he may sell at a
profit. If, on the contrary, he buys not for sale but for possession,
and afterwards, for some reason wishes to sell, it is not a trade
transaction even if he sell at a profit. For he may lawfully do this,
either because he has bettered the thing, or because the value of the
thing has changed with the change of place or time, or on account of
the danger he incurs in transferring the thing from one place to
another, or again in having it carried by another. In this sense
neither buying nor selling is unjust.
Reply Obj. 3: Clerics should abstain not only from things that are
evil in themselves, but even from those that have an appearance of
evil. This happens in trading, both because it is directed to worldly
gain, which clerics should despise, and because trading is open to so
many vices, since "a merchant is hardly free from sins of the lips"
[*'A merchant is hardly free from negligence, and a huckster shall
not be justified from the sins of the lips'] (Ecclus. 26:28). There
is also another reason, because trading engages the mind too much
with worldly cares, and consequently withdraws it from spiritual
cares; wherefore the Apostle says (2 Tim. 2:4): "No man being a
soldier to God entangleth himself with secular businesses."
Nevertheless it is lawful for clerics to engage in the first
mentioned kind of exchange, which is directed to supply the
necessaries of life, either by buying or by selling.
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