On Tobias

1. Tobias's Blindness and His Honesty in Poverty

Wearied by so holy a duty, while the prophet was resting in his bedchamber, from droppings falling from a sparrow's nest he fell into blindness, and he did not groan in complaint, nor say: This is the reward of my labors. He grieved more that he had been deprived of the office of dutiful service than of the gift of his eyes; nor did he consider blindness a punishment, but an impediment. And when he supported his sustenance by his wife's wage, he took care that nothing stolen should enter his house: his wife had received a kid-goat as wages; but he, taking counsel more for honesty than for his own comfort, to whom he owed his own nourishment, rejected it. He had entrusted a certain sum of money to his neighbor, which throughout all the time of his life, in such great want, he never demanded back.

Scarcely, when he saw himself grown weary and his deposit laid down by old age, did he mention it to his son—not so much desiring to reclaim what had been entrusted, as anxious lest he should defraud his heir.

2. Tobias's Refusal to Lend at Interest

Therefore, in that he entrusted money and did not put it out at interest, he kept the duty of the just man. For usury by which interest is sought is an evil thing: but that lending is not evil of which it is written: Lend to your neighbor in the time of his need. For David also says: The just man shows mercy and lends. That other lending is rightly execrable—to give money at interest, which the Law forbids. But Tobias shunned this, who advised his son not to pass over the commandment of the Lord, that he should give alms out of his substance, not put money out at interest, not turn away his face from any poor man. He who gives this counsel condemns the usuries of interest-lending, from which many have made gain, and for many the lending of money at interest has been a business. And indeed the saints have forbidden it.

3. The Reward of Merciful Lending

The graver an evil usury is, the more praiseworthy is he who shuns it. Give money if you have it, let that which is idle to you profit another. Give as one who will not receive it back, so that it may turn to gain if it is repaid. He who does not repay the money repays gratitude: if you are defrauded of money, you acquire justice; for he is just who shows mercy and lends. If the money is lost, mercy is gained. For it is written: He who does mercy lends to his neighbor.

1. The Rich Man's Reluctance to Lend

Many, for fear of loss, do not lend, dreading fraud. And this is what they are accustomed to reply to those who ask. To each of them it is said: Lose your money for the sake of your brother and friend, and do not hide it under a stone unto its ruin. Place your treasure in the commandments of the Most High, and it will profit you more than gold. But the ears of men have grown deaf to such wholesome precepts, and especially the ears of the rich are closed by that bronze of their own money. While they count their money, they do not hear such answers.

As soon as someone, constrained by necessity or anxious for the ransom of his own kin whom a barbarian sells as captives, begins to ask, straightway the rich man turns away his face, does not recognize a common nature, has no pity on the humility of the suppliant, does not relieve his necessity, does not consider our common frailty, stands unbending, leaned back, is not bent by prayers, not moved by tears, not broken by wailing, swearing that he has nothing—nay, he himself even seeks out a moneylender, that he may relieve his own necessities! Why do you add the sacrament of an oath to your hardness and avarice? You are not absolved by perjury, but bound by it.

2. The Money-Lender's Deceptive Kindness

But when mention is made of interest, or of a pledge, then the moneylender, with lowered brow, smiles, and him whom before he denied knowing, this same man he now greets with a kiss, as though recalling a paternal friendship, calls the pledge an inheritance of affection, forbids weeping. Let us look, he says, at home, if we have any money; I will break up for your sake my father's silver plate which has been wrought—it will be a great loss: what interest payments will make up for the value of the ornamented work? But for a friend's sake I will not fear the loss; when you have repaid, I will make it good. And so before he gives, he hastens to receive back: and he who says he is coming to the rescue with the whole sum, exacts interest. On the Kalends, he says, you will pay interest; the principal I do not ask for, if you do not have the means to restore it.

Thus, though he gives once, he harasses frequently, and always contrives that the man is in his debt. By this art he handles the man. And so he first binds him with bonds of writing, and constrains him with the fetters of his own spoken word. The money is counted out, liberty is signed away; the wretched man is released from a lesser debt, and bound by a greater one.

3. The False Humanity of the Rich

Such, O rich men, are your kindnesses. You give less, and exact more. Such is your humanity, that you despoil even while you assist. Even the poor man is fruitful for you unto gain. The needy man is made a debtor at interest, by your compulsion; he has what he must repay, but not what he may spend. Truly merciful men, whom others release, you condemn to bondage! He who lacks food pays interest. Is anything more grievous? He seeks a remedy, you offer poison; he begs for bread, you hand him a sword; he implores liberty, you inflict servitude; he prays for release, you draw tight the knot of a shapeless noose.

1. David's Lament Over Usury and Deceit

This especially is the injustice which holy David laments, saying: I have seen iniquity and contradiction in the city, and usury and deceit have not departed from its streets. And so, when he had set forth the betrayal of Judas, he prefaced it with this—either because, beyond the odium of sacrilege, the crime of usury was added to those conspiring in the Lord's death, or because so great a sacrilege was fully and abundantly avenged by the usury of interest-taking. Evil were those money-lenders who gave money that they might kill the author of salvation; evil too are those who give that they may kill an innocent man. And this one too, who received the money, like the traitor Judas, hanged himself with a noose. Judas himself, too, was thought worthy to be condemned by this curse, that the moneylender should search out his substance; because what the proscription of tyrants or the hand of robbers is wont to do, this the sheer wickedness of the moneylender alone is accustomed to accomplish.

But more learned men think that the moneylender himself is likened to the devil, who by a certain interest of usurious iniquity overturns the goods of the soul and the patrimony of the precious mind—thus he seizes by expense, thus he entices by gold, thus he entangles by guilt, thus he demands the head as the treasure.

2. The Injustice of the Money-Lender

What is more unjust than you, who are not even content with the loss of the principal? What is more unjust than you, who give money, and bind up both life and patrimony? You take gold and silver as pledge, and yet you still call him a debtor, who has trusted you more than he received from you? You claim to be creditors, you who owe more; you, I say, call yourselves creditors, who have trusted not the man, but the pledge. Well is it called "fenus" (interest) that you give—it is as vile and worthless as hay ("fenum").

3. The Debtor's Fate Likened to a Cast Lot

You call what is owed "the lot" (sors). For indeed, as if by a funereal urn, the wretched lot is turned, to be atoned for by the punishment of the doomed debtor. The accused stand pale at the outcome of the lot. Not so tremble those over whose condemnation a lot is cast; not so downcast and suspended in dread are those over whose captivity the outcome of the lot is awaited. For there it is the captivity of one man that is at stake; here, of many. And perhaps it is called "lot" for this reason, because the patrimonies which are turned under this lot lie in the outcome of chance. Great and memorable is the benefit of God. This is specially proclaimed by the prophetic mouth, that which He bestowed upon the fathers, in that He delivered them from usuries and iniquity. And he says properly: He delivered them from usuries, because usuries bring on servitude. As if he were saying: He restored to freedom those snatched from the bond of servitude.

4. The Weight of the Word Debtor

Heavy is the word "debtors." Sins are called debts. Debtors also are called guilty men; for these, too, just like those, are judged concerning their head (i.e. Their life). Yet they have, in the diversity of their names, the diversity of their faults, as of their deeds. Debts, though of different amounts, have one name, one burden, one danger. Therefore the unhappy man does not know what he is asking for, who seeks borrowed money; he is ignorant of what he receives.

What he has received, straightway he draws to himself a crowd of scoundrels; where too there is talk of the lots of both Testaments. That money having been consumed through intemperance, the moneylender drives the wretch to sell his furnishings, or grants him delays—but delays even more grim than warlike ones; at last there follows the too-late repentance of his folly.

1. Money as a Restless Wave of the Sea

The moneylender's money does not know how to stand longer in one place, being accustomed to pass through many hands. It does not know how to be kept in one purse; it seeks to be turned over and counted; it demands use, so that it may claim interest. It is a kind of wave of the sea, not a fruit. Money never rests. It slips away; as if dashed against a rock, so it strikes the bosom of the debtor, and immediately slides back to the place whence it came. It comes with a murmur, it returns with a groan. Often, however, the sea stands calm though the winds blow; the wave of usury is always tossed. It drowns the shipwrecked, spits out the naked, strips the clothed, leaves the unburied. You ask, then, for a coin, and you take on a shipwreck.

On this side roars Charybdis, on that the Sirens, who, under the appearance of pleasure and the sweetness of tuneful charm, as the fables tell, defrauded those led blindly into the shoals, of the hope and desire of returning home (Homer, Odyssey M).

2. Flatterers and Parasites Drawn by Borrowed Wealth

Straightway the sellers of ointment and of various spices rush in, like certain dogs drawn by the keen scent of wandering prey; hunters, fishermen, fowlers, tavern-keepers too, mixing water with wine, who trumpet the nobility of an ancient lineage, and of the country, and the birthday of the vintage: standing round, the parasites, whom before they were wont to scorn, suddenly greet him, escort him, invite him to merriment, urge him on to expense, saying: Come, and let us enjoy the good things that are, and let us use the creature as in youth, swiftly: let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments, and let not the flower of the season pass us by. Let us crown ourselves with roses before they wither; let there be no meadow that our luxury does not pass through; everywhere let us leave behind tokens of our merriment, since this is our portion, and this is our lot. And truly all their lot has been made theirs: but you remain without a lot in these goods.

3. The Lots of Scripture Versus the Lots of Luxury

Scripture has not shown you such lots as these. Holy David does not mention sleeping among such lots, saying: If you sleep among the midst of the lots. For if you had slept in the midst of those lots, that is, of the Old and New Testament, the desire for money would not have plunged you into the whirlpool of the vilest usury; the grace of spiritual faith would have given you silver, and by the instruction of divine wisdom would have shaped you into the likeness of gold. For if we have set forth one testimony of divine Scripture, and have turned aside from that luxurious banquet, certainly this man too could have been saved, if he had clung to the heavenly oracles.

4. The Ruinous Banquet of the Borrower

Let us return, however, to the banquet, not that we may taste its dishes, but that we may show others that they must be avoided. The table is loaded with foreign and exquisite foods: gleaming servants are employed, bought at great price, at greater expense to feed: drinking goes on into the night, the day is closed with the banquet, and fails in drunkenness. He rises full of wine, empty of wealth, sleeps until daylight, and waking thinks it a dream. For just as in dreams he seems suddenly rich out of poor, so also he becomes needy out of rich. Meanwhile, while the money flows away, the interest overflows: the time diminishes, the usury increases: the treasure is emptied, the debt-principal is heaped up: little by little the fellow-guests withdraw, the sureties come together: in the morning the money-lender knocks at the doors, complains that the days appointed for payment have passed, assails the waking man with insults, rouses the sleeping man in his dreams.

Neither are the nights quiet, nor the day pleasant, nor the sun joyful. Little by little the gilded and silken garments are stripped away, and sold for half their worth. The wife, now sadder, lays aside with tears her ornaments, bought more dearly, to be sold more cheaply. At the auction the household boys are set as servants of the table, and, ill-trained, turn away the buyer. Money is offered to the creditor: “Scarcely,” he says, “does this pay the interest; you still owe the principal.”

5. The Debtor's Reckoning Compared to War

His patrimony exhausted, he returns liable for the principal; and, the interest reduced, he receives a delay sadder than that of war, as though he were to fight again after two days. For in war the victory is uncertain, here poverty is certain: there a man covers himself with a shield, here he goes forth naked: there a breastplate encloses the chest, here the whole man is enclosed in prison: there the hand is loaded with weapons, armed with arrows, here he offers empty hands to be bound with chains. Very often both are led away captive: the one has someone to blame for the adverse outcome of the war, the other has no one to blame but himself. Nothing is more intolerable than this misery, which cannot be excused. Conscience makes the weight of the injury more bitter.

6. Too Late Recourse to Scripture's Counsel

Then he reckons with himself, then he recalls the Scriptures, then he says: Is it not written to me: Drink water from your own vessels, and from the springs of your own wells? What have I to do with the money-lender's well, where even the water is shut up? Sweeter were vegetables with security, than another's feasts eaten with anxiety. I ought not to have sought after another's goods. Then, when I had fallen into debt, I ought to have sought a remedy from my own springs. There were smaller vessels at home: it were better to lack service than food: better to offer clothing for sale than to sell freedom into bondage. What good did it do that I was ashamed to make my poverty public? Behold, another has made it public. I was unwilling to sell my foster-servants; behold, another adjudges them away.

7. The Wisdom of Restraint Before Ruin

This consideration comes too late. Then it was fitting to have feared for your own things, when you were receiving those of others: then it was fitting to give help, when the first wounds were spreading. It would have been better at the beginning to reduce expense, and to relieve the necessity of debt by the constraints of household economy, than, having been enriched for a while by others' goods, to be later stripped even of your own.

1. The Money-Lender's Schemes Against Young Heirs

We accuse the debtor of having conducted himself too imprudently: but yet nothing is more wicked than money-lenders, who reckon others' losses as their own gains; and count as their own detriment whatever is possessed by others. They hunt for new heirs, they explore rich young men through their agents, they attach themselves, feigning a friendship of father and grandfather, they wish to learn the domestic necessities of these young men. If they find any occasion, they accuse their modesty, they reproach their diffidence, because nothing had been hoped for or presumed of them beforehand. But if they find no snares of any need, they weave up documents, saying that a noble estate is for sale, an ample house: they pile up the yields of the fruits, they exaggerate the yearly returns, they urge that they be bought. They do likewise with precious garments and noble jewels, extolling them.

To one who denies having the money, they press their own upon him, saying: “Use it as your own: from the fruits of the purchased possession you will multiply the price, and you will repay the debt.”

2. Snares Set to Strip the Young Man's Estate

They dangle others' estates before the young man, in order to strip him of his own; they spread their nets, and as soon as he has entered the enclosed space of the hunting-ground, they drive him into the nets of bonds, the snares of usuries: they ask that his grandfather's mansion, his father's tomb, be pledged to them: a day is set for payment, the agreement is passed over in silence, whenever payment can be deferred; when they have made him quite secure, suddenly they rush in, and press more vehemently, and, bearing down on his pleading, say: “You possess your estates, we do not have our money: we gave gold, we hold wood: for you the profits of the fruits accrue, for us no increase of money accrues. Your plea is idle; let the bond at least be renewed.”

1. The Money-Lender and Debtor as Hunter and Prey

And so while at first the young man thinks nothing of his garments, or even his possessions, ought to be sold, he asks for delay in doing these things. The interest is added to the principal, the hundredth is accumulated. Now he begins to sigh, now to recognize his own evil. Day and night he thinks of the interest: whatever occurs to him, he thinks it is the money-lender: whatever creaks, he seems to himself to hear the money-lender's voice. “If you have it, why do you not pay?

If you do not have it, why do you add evil to evil, and seek a remedy from the wound? Why do you daily suffer the siege of the money-lender, why do you fear his storming? There is an ancient saying: Of the money-lender and the debtor meeting one another, the Lord makes the sight of both. The one, like a dog, seeks prey; the other, like a wild beast, avoids the hunter: the one, like a lion, seeks whom he may devour; the other, like a young ox, dreads the attack of the plunderer: the one, like a hawk, seeks to seize a swan with its claws; the other, like a goose or a coot, prefers to throw itself down over a precipice, or to plunge into the depths, rather than endure this hawk in human form. Why do you flee daily? And if the money-lender does not meet you, poverty meets you like a good runner.

The Lord, therefore, sees both, the money-lender and the debtor: he beholds them meeting one another, a witness of the one's iniquity, of the other's injury: he condemns the avarice of the one, the folly of the other. The one counts each single step of the debtor, watches for his turnings aside; the other immediately shades his head behind pillars. For the debtor has no standing to appear openly. Both, on their fingers, repeat again and again the reckoning of the interest. The care is equal, but the feeling unequal. The one rejoices in the increase of the usury, the other is afflicted by the heap of debt. The one counts up gains, the other, hardships.

2. The Debtor's Flight and Final Enslavement

Why do you flee a man whom you could also not fear? Why do you flee, or how long will you flee? If someone knocks at night, you think it is the money-lender, and at once you are under the bed: if you sense someone suddenly entering, you leap out of doors. A dog barks, and your heart throbs, sweat pours out, panting shakes your limbs, you seek what lie to tell, so as to put off the money-lender; and when you have obtained a delay, you rejoice. The money-lender pretends to be burdened by your debt: but he gladly grants it, like a hunter who has surrounded the wild beast, being sure of his prey. You kiss his head, you embrace his knees, and, like a stag struck by a poisoned arrow, going on a little further, at last, near, you succumb to the venom: or like a fish that has been pierced by a trident, wherever it flees it carries the wound with it.

And truly that fish devours death in the bait, it swallows the hook while it seeks food; but yet it does not see the hook, which the bait conceals: you see the hook, and swallow it. Your hook is the creditor's interest: you devour the hook, but the worm always gnaws you. It is the very bait that deceives. And so for you neither is the food of the interest of any use, nor is the hook anything but a wound. Or do you not know that one once entangled in a knot binds himself the more, if he flees; and, placed within the nets, by fleeing throws the nets over himself the more? You flee into the streets, when within walls you cannot be safe. The money-lender will find you whenever he wishes. Finally, when you have let the time run out, like a wolf he rushes in by night, does not let you sleep, and, awaiting the day, drags you into public, or forces you to sign the documents of sale.

As you have stolen away your dignity, you sign at once, about to sell your ancestral tomb, so that indeed some pretext of your father's honor may be preserved: only the fast is bought, it is bruited about that he sold barren things, that he burdened the debtor with losses, and the losses of an earlier time are charged to the losses of the present. Soon even the praised things are sold, and now not documents, but chains, are brought in.

3. The Surety Drawn Into the Debtor's Ruin

Yet still sureties are to be sought. Delays are granted not so that he may find booty of freedom, but so that he may attach a partner in servitude, one who will join himself to the sorrowful man. But how can the addition of another's calamity help? Now even friends flee, fellow-guests do not recognize him: he himself too shuns the sight of all, and, like a boxer struck by the various blows of contenders, so this man avoids the encounters of honorable men, and, anxious, whenever he happens upon someone, goes out with a watchful gaze. He returns ready for chains, returns wishing for death, thinking that it would bring him rest, if he should die. He returns wretchedly condemning himself, because he did not shun another's money, and bound himself with the money-lender's debt.

4. Suicide as the Wages of Debt

How many wretches have others' goods made! “What have you,” he says, “to do with drinking the water of Geon?” What, I say, have you to do with drinking the money-lender's cup? Many, he says, have borrowed for a time, and provided for their needs, and repaid the money. And how many have strangled themselves on account of interest! You consider those, you do not count these: you remember that some escaped, you do not remember that some perished: you reckon the money repaid, you do not reckon the nooses sought out, which very many, more sensitive to the disgrace of so shameful an agreement, more ashamed of insult, more fragile before injury, preferred by seeking their own destruction, fearing the reproach to their life more than the punishment of death.

1. Children Auctioned for Their Father's Debt

I myself have seen a pitiable spectacle, children led to auction for their father's debt, and held as heirs of calamity who were not sharers in the inheritance; and that the creditor did not blush at so monstrous a crime. He presses, urges, adjudges. “Nourished,” he says, “by my money, let them acknowledge servitude in return for their sustenance, let them undergo the bidding in return for the expense.” Let the auction-spear be brandished over the prices of each. Not undeservedly is the spear brandished, where the person is sought: not undeservedly does it come to auction, where the lot is demanded. This is the money-lender's inhumanity, this the debtor's folly, that he takes away freedom from the children to whom he leaves no money, that he leaves a bond instead of a will, a written obligation instead of the profit of an inheritance. What does the writing of a father's curse upon his children mean, where there is no offence of impious sin? Can any curse be harder, or any servitude more grievous?

And often the dead man has this advantage after death, that he does not behold the miseries of his children.

2. A Father's Shameless Words to His Children

Often indeed a father sells his children by the authority of generation, but not by the voice of piety: he drags the wretches to auction with a shamefaced countenance, saying: “Pay, children, the cost of my gluttony, pay the price of your father's table: vomit up what you did not devour, restore what you did not receive; you are the better for this, that with your price you redeem your father, that with your servitude you buy your father's freedom.”

3. The Insatiable Money-Lender and the Prophet's Rebuke

Suppose that someone able to help should come forward. Who could fill up so great a Charybdis? Who could know the money-lender's accounts? Who could satisfy his avarice? What prices does he not exaggerate, when he sees redeemers? For he is fed not so much on his own gain as on another's loss. True indeed, true is that, as being of God, the divine saying, who, when He was angry because of the impiety of the people of the Jews, because they went after strange gods, said: “To whom have I sold you, to the money-lender?” For he who has been bound to a money-lender is sold, and is sold not at a single price, but daily: he is sold not with a fixed limit, but with a continual addition. There is a new auction of interest every month, a new sale under a daily bidding. He who has offered more, always drags him on; he is adjudged for sale, and never is reckoned as though already sold.

Great, then, is the force of the heavenly saying. The Lord did not judge it enough to say: “To whom have I sold you”; but He added, “to the money-lender”? Being offended, He could find nothing more grievous with which to avenge Himself upon the faithless. Forsaken, He expostulates why they have so fled the author of salvation, as though the Lord had sold them to some money-lender with a fitting penalty. Those who leave the Lord, being slaves, have that which they should dread more than the penalties and chains of prison: being free, they have that which they should fear because of neglect of their freedom.

4. Usury as the Root of Faithlessness

At the same time note this, that usury has been judged the material of prevarication; that he easily departs from the Lord who can bind himself to a money-lender. For interest is the root of falsehood, the cause of faithlessness. “I,” He says, “have not sold you; but you have been sold for your sins”. Therefore he who binds himself to a money-lender sells himself; and, what is worse, he sells himself not for money, but for guilt.

1. The Devil as the Money-Lender of Sin

Who is this money-lender of sin, but the devil, from whom Eve, having borrowed sin as a debt of liable succession, defrauded the whole human race with usury? Then, like an evil money-lender, he held the bond, which afterward the Lord blotted out with His own blood. For that which had been written in the letters of death, had to be dissolved by death. The devil, therefore, is the money-lender. Then he showed the Savior his riches, saying: "All these I will give you, if falling down you will worship me". But indeed the Lord, the payer of another's debt, owed nothing Himself, He who could say: "Behold, the prince of this world comes, and finds nothing of his own in me". He owed nothing, but He paid for all, as He Himself testifies, saying: "What I did not steal, I then paid".

2. The Hundredth Sheep Contrasted With Usury's Hundredth

What difference is there from the malice of this prince of the world? The money-lender binds the head, holds the hand, leads off by lot. O sad name derived from sweetness! The Lord set free the hundredth sheep; that hundredth is of salvation, this one of death; and good earth renders a hundredfold fruit. Woe to those who call bitter sweet, and sweet bitter! What is more bitter than usury, what sweeter than grace? Should they not, by this very word by which they call it "the hundredth," be recalled to memory of the Redeemer, who came to save the hundredth sheep, not to destroy it?

3. The Money-Lender as a Harsh Tax-Gatherer

Who is a harsher tax-gatherer? And this too is a sad name. Finally the Lord says: My people, your exactors oppress you. And in the Gospel you have: While you go with your adversary to the magistrate, take pains to be freed from him; lest perhaps he bring you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the exactor, and the exactor cast you into prison. Recognize who this exactor is, who exacts even the last farthing, and who calls himself also a creditor, and in this very name too commits a fraud: like one who smears cups of poison with honey, so that under a pleasant odor death may lie hidden, and the smeared rim of the cup may conceal the force of the fraud. He is put forward as a creditor as if faithful; and yet as if unbelieving, to whom the faithful man pledges his goods.

1. Burial Withheld Until the Debt Is Paid

How many times have I seen the dead held by money-lenders as a pledge, and burial denied, while the interest is demanded? To these I gladly acquiesced, that they might bind fast their debtor, so that, once he was chosen, the surety might escape; for these are the laws of the money-lender. So I said: Hold your defendant; and lest he be able to slip away from you, take him home, shut him up in your bedchamber, harsher than executioners; since him whom you hold, the prison does not receive, the tax-collector releases; after death the prison lets go the guilty of sins, but you shut him in; by the severity of the laws the dead man is released, but by you he is held fast. Surely he is already recorded as having fulfilled his lot; yet I do not begrudge it, keep your pledge. There is no difference between a funeral and interest, no distinction between death and the principal sum: the usury of interest resounds, resounds with a funeral wailing.

Now truly he whom you sue has suffered loss of legal standing; yet bind him with stronger fetters still, lest he not feel your chains: hard and rigid is the debtor, and one who no longer knows how to blush. One thing indeed you need not fear, that he does not know how to ask for food.

2. Carrying the Dead to the Money-Lender's House

I ordered therefore that the body be lifted up, and led in the order of a funeral procession to the money-lender's house: but even from there such sounds resounded, the bellowing of those shut in. There too you would believe there was a funeral, there too you would think the dead were being mourned: nor was the judgment false, except that it was clear that more were about to die there. Overcome by the custom of religion, the money-lender (for elsewhere it is said that even such pledges are accepted) asks that the remains be carried to the place of the tomb; then only did I see the money-lenders, otherwise so humane, made heavy at my expense; yet I recalled to mind their humanity in providing for this, lest afterward they complain of having been defrauded, until, having put their necks under the bier, they themselves carried the dead man to the graves, weeping with heavier grief over the funeral of their money.

1. The Money-Lender's Profit From Ruined Gamblers

Receive another matter of no less bitterness. These men watch the gatherings of dice-players, and they judge the calamity of the loser to be their own advantage: they stand surety for each one. At first fortune plays with varied outcomes, victory is often transferred to different parties, and its wages and its calamity alternate in turn: all are conquered and all conquer, the money-lender alone acquires: with the others there is the empty name of having won, with the money-lender alone is the profit, not annual, but momentary; they alone make gain amid the loss of all, they alone enjoy the interest of victory. You may see the rest suddenly poor, suddenly rich, then naked, changing their fortune with each single throw. For their life turns like a die; their wealth is spun upon the gaming-board, a game is made of peril, and peril is made of the game; as many throws, so many proscriptions. There is the clamor of those applauding, the weeping of those despoiled, the groaning of those lamenting.

Among them sits the creditor like a tyrant, condemning each one by capital lot, brandishing the spears, instituting a deadly auction of each man's spoils: some he consigns to proscription, others to servitude: not so many are killed under tyrants. This I would more rightly call the dice-game of life than of money; in a moment is carried off what would have availed for eternity. Drunkenness judges, and no one appeals. Even the dice-game has its own laws, which the rights of the forum cannot dissolve. Marked with infamy, if it can be believed, is he who has thought he ought to resist, and the sentence of the infamous brands a more grievous reproach than judicial censure; since those condemned before a judge are glorious among them, while those condemned among them are criminals before the judge. Moses established the noble judgment of the elders: yet these judged lighter matters; the weightier word, that is, of the more important business, they were accustomed to reserve for the judgment of Moses.

Here it is said: The counsel of the dice-players has judged, and their power is feared more than that of lions. Among these beasts you live and move, money-lender. From these beasts you snatch away food, by these you are reckoned more foul, by these more cruel, more feared.

2. The Huns Enslaved to Dice and Money-Lenders

They say the peoples of the Huns wage war by every means, yet are subject to money-lenders; and though they live without laws, they obey only the laws of dice, playing even under arms, carrying dice along with them, and perishing more by their own throws than by those of the enemy: that in their own victory they become captives, and endure spoliation from their own people, which they have never known to suffer from an enemy: therefore they never lay down the pursuits of war; because he who is conquered in the game of dice, having lost the whole prize of his booty, seeks in the peril of war the means of gaming again: and often they are seized with such ardor that, when the defeated man has handed over the arms which alone he greatly esteemed, at a single throw of the dice he consigns his own life to the power either of the victor or of the money-lender.

In fine, it is recorded that a certain one of them, known also in good faith to the Roman emperor, paid off, by the penalties of the death imposed, the price of the servitude which he had brought upon himself by such a chance when defeated. So the money-lender presses down even the necks of the Huns, and drives them to the sword, presses the barbarians with the terror of his own savagery.

1. The Many Names Invented for Usury

For what is more foul than one who lends today, and demands tomorrow? And such a man, it says, is hateful. The offer indeed is winsome, but the exaction is monstrous. But the very humanity of the offer produces also the savagery of the exaction: he has put forth money, he demands mortgages, and stores it up in his own storehouses. A single sum of money is given by money-lenders, and how many things are exacted from debtors? How many names have they invented for themselves? Coin is given, it is called interest: it is called the principal, it is termed the capital: it is written down as debt: this monstrous portent of many "heads" produces a numerous exaction: he calls it a bond, he names it a note of hand, he demands mortgages, he claims a pledge, he calls them securities, he asserts an obligation, he preaches interest, he praises the hundredth.

2. Usury Compared to a Venomous Viper

The money-lender's money is a kind of viper, which brings forth so many evils in travail. Yet the viper, drawing her fecund entrails through her pains, is burst by her own offspring. And by her mother's death she teaches that her brood is not degenerate from its mother. For as soon as they begin to be serpents, they tear her with their own bites. There, where the venom is born, it is first tested. But the money-lender's money conceives, bears, and nurses all its evils, and grows all the more in its offspring, more abundant in its sad progeny. It is no less winding than a serpent, and, coiling itself wholly into a circle to protect its head, it lashes with the rest of its body, exposing that alone to wounds: with its huge coils it binds those it has seized, and kills with its head alone: with the head safe, even if the rest of its body be shattered, it revives.

3. The Generation of Vipers and Ceaseless Interest

Serpents also have different times for mating and for bearing young: money lent at interest, from the day the agreement is entered into, creeps along with growing interest, which does not know how to give birth in travail; because it rather pours forth its pains upon others. There are pains as of a woman in labor; whence also the Greeks have called interest τόκους (offspring), because it seems to arouse the birth-pangs of the debtor's soul. The calends come, the principal gives birth to the hundredth: the months come one by one, interest is generated, an evil offspring of evil parents. This is the generation of vipers. The hundredth has grown, it is demanded and not paid, it is added to the principal. The prophetic curse is fulfilled, deceit upon deceit, a worse brood born of a wicked seed of usury. And so it no longer begins to be the hundredth, but the sum total, that is, no longer the hundredth part of the interest, but the interest of the hundredth.

1. The Ceaseless Birth-Cycle of Interest

I think also that "usura" is named from "usus" (use), because just as garments are worn out by use, so are patrimonies torn apart by interest. The first letter written on the wax sounds mournful. It is a voice of grief that gives birth; what good can there be for you in a thing that begins from grief and from obligation? They say that hares both mate and rear at the same time, and give birth continually: so too in these engraved records of usury, interest is generated and generated again upon itself, it is nursed and is born, and once born already gives birth. The roots of trees too are first planted so that they may take hold; when they have taken hold, then they begin to turn green, afterward to sprout: but money lent at interest, scarcely planted, already sprouts.

Seeds burst forth in their season, animals bring forth in their season: For there is a time to bear, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal. And below: A time to acquire, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away, as Ecclesiastes says: money lent at interest is sown today, tomorrow it bears fruit: it always gives birth, and never perishes: it is always being planted, scarcely ever plucked up. The money-lender always wishes to acquire, never to lose: never to keep his money, always to cast it forth: never to heal, always to kill.

2. Ecclesiastes on the Money-Lender's Insatiable Greed

And since Ecclesiastes, the book of Solomon, is a good teacher in all things, let us dwell on it a little: The eye, it says, is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing: nor is the money-lender filled by receiving, nor is his desire sated by the daily hearing of the sum of money named. And again: That which has been, the same is that which shall be: money always grows, avarice knows no rest, usury knows no holidays. All the rivers, it says, run into the sea, yet the sea is not filled. This sea is the money-lender: he swallows up the patrimonies of all like waves, and himself does not know how to be filled. Yet the sea is used by many for gain, the money-lender is used by no one except to his loss: there the advantage is of many, here the shipwreck is of all.

3. Interest That Never Ceases to Multiply

There are many living creatures which begin to breed quickly, but also quickly cease to breed: the principal sum breeds quickly, and never ceases; nay rather, once it has received the beginning of growth, it extends its increase into infinity. Moreover, everything that grows, once it has come to the form and measure and magnitude proper to its nature, ceases from increase: but the money-lenders' money is always increased by time, and, exceeding beyond the form of its maternal principal, keeps no bound. Most living creatures too, once they have begun to bear offspring from those born of them, lose, as if with exhausted powers, the capacity for generation: but the principal sum of interest, once it has been equaled by the growing hundredths, both renews its own antiquity and multiplies its accustomed births by further addition.

1. The Mosaic Law Against Lending at Interest

This is no new or perfunctory evil, which is forbidden by the precept of the ancient and divine law. The people who had despoiled Egypt, who had crossed the sea on foot, are warned to beware of shipwrecks from money lent at interest. And though concerning other sins he prescribed once or with a repeated admonition once or twice, concerning interest he gave warning more often. You have in Exodus: If you lend money to the pupil, the orphan, the poor man, you shall not oppress him with you, you shall not impose interest upon him. He shows what it is "to strangle," that is, to impose interest; for the creditor's noose strangles, and what is worse, the soul; by which word he expressed both the violence of the robber and the knot of a shameful death. But if you have taken as a pledge your neighbor's garment, you shall restore it before the setting of the sun; for this alone is his covering, this the garment of his shame in which he will sleep.

And if therefore he cries out to me, I will hear him. Have you heard, money-lenders, what the Law says, of which the Lord said: I have not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it? What the Lord did not destroy, do you destroy? To demand interest, he says, is to strangle. This too was said late, outside the fold, by some of their wise men: What is it to lend at interest? It is, he says, to kill a man. But surely Cato is not earlier than Moses, who received the law. He is much later.

2. Restoring the Pledge Before Sunset

If you shall have taken as a pledge the garment of your neighbor, you shall restore it before the setting of the sun, lest the shame of his nakedness appear. But you strip and lay bare, and do not restore. See that the sun does not set upon your avarice, lest the sun of justice set upon you; because you do not hold to justice, or lest the sun of iniquity be buried beneath your crimes. The day too perishes against one's will, night rushes in as it did upon Judas, into whose heart when the devil had cast himself, he rose up to betrayal, and night was made; for the sun of justice had set for him, and had lain down over him. He who entered into his heart made darkness for him, that he might not see the author of light. There the wretched man perished at that banquet at which others are saved. Restore therefore the garment to the debtor, that he may sleep in it, and be at rest.

If you refuse to restore it: I will hear him, He says, because I am merciful. If you do not hear, I will hear, I will have mercy, I will not despise the prayer of the poor.

3. Interpreting the Law's Ban on Brotherly Interest

In Deuteronomy also it is written: You shall not exact from your brother interest on money, or interest on food, or interest on anything whatsoever you have lent to your brother. If you have lent to a foreigner, you may exact interest from him: but from your brother you shall not exact it. See how much weight there is in these words. Do not, He says, exact interest from your brother—that is, from him with whom you ought to hold all things in common, do you exact interest from him? Your brother, sharer of your nature and co-heir of grace—do not exact more from him, from whom it is harsh even to demand back what you gave, unless he has the means to repay.

4. Usury Disguised as Merchant's Profit

And because many, fleeing the precepts of the Law when they have given money to merchants, do not exact interest in money, but receive from their merchandise as it were the profits of usury; therefore let them hear what the Law says: Neither, it says, shall you take interest of food, nor of anything whatsoever you have lent to your brother. For this is fraud and a circumvention of the Law, not observance of it. And do you think you act piously, because you receive from the merchant as it were a gift? From that very source he commits fraud in the price of his goods, from which he pays you interest. You are the author of that fraud, you are a partaker in it; whatever he defrauds profits you. And food is usury, and clothing is usury, and whatever is added to the principal is usury: give it whatever name you wish, it is usury. If it is lawful, why do you flee the word, why do you cover it with a veil?

If it is unlawful, why do you seek an increase?

5. The Rich Man's Feast Bought by Others' Ruin

What is worse, this vice belongs to very many, and especially to the rich, for whom storerooms are built under this pretext. If anyone thinks a banquet should be prepared, he sends to the merchant, that he may bring him a cask of wormwood-flavored wine for free: he sends to the innkeeper, to ask for Picenian wine, or Tyrian: to the butcher, to procure for him a sow's womb: to another, to arrange fruit for him. And so they judge as courtesy what is established at another's peril. You drink, and another dissolves in tears: you feast, and you strangle others with your food: you delight in music, and another laments with a pitiable wailing: you taste fruits, and another devours a thorn. Do they gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? The thorn is usury, the thorn is the hundredth percent, the thistle is interest, it burns evilly. How then can you have fruit from thorns? If this fruit is not born from thorns, that eternal fruit will be born.

You grow rich from calamities, you seek gain from tears, you feed on another's hunger, you forge silver from the spoils of despoiled men: and do you judge yourself rich, who demand alms from the poor man? But hear what the Savior says: Woe to you rich, who have your consolation!

1. The Foreigner Identified as the Enemy

But perhaps you will say that it is written: You shall lend at interest to a foreigner; and you do not consider what the Gospel says, which is fuller. But let us set this aside for now, consider the words of the Law itself: To your brother, it says, you shall not lend at interest: but you shall exact it from the foreigner. Who then was the foreigner, but Amalek, but the Amorite, but enemies? There, it says, exact interest. Him whom you rightly wish to harm, against whom arms are justly brought, against him usuries are lawfully imposed. Him whom you cannot easily conquer in war, from him you can quickly avenge yourself by the hundredth percent. Exact interest from him, whom it is no crime to kill. He fights without iron who demands interest: he avenges himself on the enemy without a sword, whoever has been the interest-exacting collector of an enemy. Therefore where there is the right of war, there also is the right of usury.

But your brother is every person, first of the faith, then of the Roman law: I will declare your name to my brothers, in the midst of the Church I will praise you.

2. The Usurer Compared to the Idolater

Finally, also in Leviticus the Law prescribes that interest is not to be demanded from a brother. For thus you have it: And your brother shall live with you, you shall not give your money to him at interest, and for receiving more you shall not give him your food. This sentence of God has generally excluded every increase of principal. Whence David also judged him blessed, and worthy of heavenly dwelling, who did not give his money at interest. If then he who did not give it is blessed, without doubt he who gave at interest is accursed. Why then do you choose a curse rather than a blessing? You can be blessed, if you wish, you can be just. For the just man, according to Ezekiel, is he who restores the pledge to the debtor, and does not give his money at interest, and does not accept an excess, and turns his hand away from injustice: This man is just, He says, he shall live, says the Lord.

But he who has not restored the pledge, and has set his eyes upon idols, has committed iniquity, since he gave at interest, and received an excess—this man shall not live. He has done all these iniquities, he shall die the death: his blood shall be upon himself. See how He has joined the usurer with the idolater, as though equating the crime. Choose therefore what is sweet.

3. A Call to Mercy Instead of Usury

Why always sad, why always most bitter, why always anxious? Let mercy at some time proceed from you, let truth proceed: let falsehood be bound, let fraud be hateful. You have taught perjury: it is called a usurious oath, where perjury is prepared. You have often arranged, when the money has been repaid, that the bond does not appear: you swear falsely afterward that you have not received the money. Do not therefore always be wretched, always greedy, always sorrowful. Lions are lions, and yet they change their fierceness: From the eater, it says, came forth food, and from the strong and sad came forth sweetness: the Greek text also has "sad"; thus we find it. Yet this is understood of the strong; because the lion is strong in fierceness: and what is fierce is sad. And from you who devour money and greed, let mercy come forth; for this is the food of the needy: and from the sad let sweetness come forth, that you may forgive him who has no means to pay.

Why do you drag sins as with a long rope, and the yoke-strap of a heifer? Which indeed happens, when you extend interest. You hold the poor debtor, even where there might be some grace, where there is no hope of gain. And this I say according to your own avarice.

1. Lend Hoping for Nothing in Return

But the Lord in the Gospel judges that one should rather lend to those from whom repayment is not hoped for. For thus He says: And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what thanks is due to you? For sinners lend to sinners, that they may receive as much again; but love your enemies, and do good to them, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward shall be great in heaven, and you shall be sons of the Most High, for He is kind toward the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, as your Father also is merciful. You observe that the name "lender" has been received from the Lord, and that also he who has been bound by your loan bears that name. Sinners, He says, lend to sinners, that they may receive back: both are sinners, both the lender and the debtor. But you, He says, love your enemies. Do not consider what enemies deserve, but what you ought to do.

Give a loan to those from whom you do not hope to receive back what was given. Here there is no loss, but gain. You give the least, you shall receive much: you give on earth, and it shall be repaid to you in heaven: you lose the interest, you shall have great reward: you cease to be lenders, you shall be sons of the Most High: you shall be merciful, so that you may prove yourselves heirs of the eternal Father.

2. Lending to God Through the Poor

But the name of lenders and of usuries delights you. That too I do not begrudge. I will teach how you can be good lenders, how you may seek good returns. Solomon says: He lends to the Lord who has mercy on the poor: and according to his gift He will repay him. Behold, a good loan made from an evil one: behold an irreproachable lender: behold a praiseworthy usury. Do not, then, think me now envious of your gains. Do you think that I am taking a debtor away from you? I provide God, I substitute Christ, I point to Him who cannot defraud you. Lend, therefore, your money to the Lord by the hand of the poor. He is bound and held: He writes down whatever the needy man has received: His Gospel is the surety: He promises on behalf of all the needy, He gives His word; why do you hesitate to give?

If some rich man of this world were offered to you, who might promise on his word for some debtor, you would immediately count out the money: the Lord of heaven, and the founder of this world, is poor to you; and still you deliberate whom richer to seek as guarantor.

3. Christ's Poverty and the Reward of Almsgiving

But you allege that He became poor, though He was rich. You see then that His faith is rich, His faith is sufficient: He became poor, when He paid for us, and even now that very poverty does not deceive; for He made us rich, whom you thought poor. For the Apostle says: He became poor, though He was rich, that by His poverty you might become rich. Good is the poverty which bestows riches. Do not, then, fear poverty, that you may be rich. Give your idle money, and you will receive fruitful grace, and you will relieve the necessities of the poor, and for you the anxiety of guarding it will be lessened. What the poor man has received will not perish; and what you have given to the needy will be kept for you without a guard. But if you seek an increase of usury, in the Law there is blessing, in the Gospel there is heavenly reward: what is sweeter than a blessing; what is greater than heaven?

If interest of food is desired, that too is at hand, as we read: For he who has mercy on the poor, shall himself be fed.

1. The Argument for Limited Pledge Restrictions

Restore, then, the pledges which you hold, since you have found a sufficient guarantor. But they still murmur, saying that it is permitted to hold pledges, and they defend themselves by the Law. For they say: It is written in Deuteronomy: If your neighbor owes you anything whatsoever, you shall not enter into his house to take a pledge: but you shall stand outside, and the man with whom is your debt shall bring the pledge out to you. But if that man is poor, you shall not sleep with his pledge; but by returning you shall restore his pledge to him before the setting of the sun, and he shall sleep in his garment, and he shall bless you, and it shall be to you a mercy before the Lord your God. And elsewhere, they say, it is written: You shall not take in pledge a millstone, nor the upper millstone; because this is taking life in pledge. And elsewhere: You shall not take the garment of a widow in pledge.

From which they argue that only specific pledges are forbidden, not all—that is, that of the poor man and of the widow. And it is forbidden to take in pledge the millstone and the upper millstone.

2. Every Pledge Must Be Restored

But since the Lord Himself, through the prophet Ezekiel, says that he is just who has restored the pledge, unjust who has kept it: certainly He urges not that some special pledge, but generally every pledge, should be restored; since Job says: The bond which I held against anyone, conceived under oath, imposing a seal I would read it, and if I did not tear it up and return it, taking nothing from the debtor. Since the Lord commands that we should hope for nothing to be received back from those to whom we have given a loan, how can they suppose that a pledge is to be retained according to the Law?

1. The Just Man's Wealth and Generous Lending

But lest they break out afresh in like manner, and say also that they are incited to usury by the pronouncement of the Law; because it is written: Thou shalt lend to many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; it is time to discuss and teach more fully and expressly what is to be lent, and to whom the statutes of the Law prescribe it; for the cause of usury precedes the cause of the pledge. The sinner, it says, shall borrow, and shall not pay: but the just man shows mercy, and gives. Hear, debtor, what thou oughtest to shun: hear, creditor, what thou oughtest to imitate. And below: I was young, and now am old; and I have not seen the just forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread. All the day he is merciful and lends. Whence has this just man wherewith to lend all day long? Therefore the just man is rich; and the richer each one is, the more just he is: he who has more with which to lend, he will be the more just.

But it is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

2. Peter's Gift Greater Than Silver and Gold

What then does he lend, tell me, holy David? Thou hast brought forth testimony against me, unless thou come to my aid.

Peter said: Silver and gold I have none. Was he not just? Do thou then explain to me what he lent. For thou hast said: Blessed is the man who shows mercy and lends, he shall order his words in judgment. I have found what the just man lends. Let Peter also teach me himself what he lent, who said to the beggar attending upon him and John: Silver and gold I have none. Wilt thou then give nothing to the poor man, O apostle? Yet thou dost give, and thou givest more than others: thou givest to the poor man what others cannot give: thou givest to the poor man that after which he cannot be in want: thou givest to the poor man what even the rich desire to receive: thou givest to the poor man what those who possess that silver and gold know not how to bestow, because avarice hinders them: thou givest to the poor man that which makes him richer than those rich men.

Thou hast stirred up my mind, I long for this gift of thine. Tell me, I beg, what thou givest. Do not keep me long in suspense; I desire to ask, if thou wilt pay quickly. But thou didst pay quickly: thou didst not put off the poor man, thou didst not despise the prayer of the beggar, thou didst not make him despair any longer, thou didst not go up to the temple empty-handed saying: Silver and gold I have none. Not only do those go up with full hands who have silver and gold: the poor man also goes up, not empty; and he too goes up not empty, because he has no gold and silver. Let us hear what this poor man gives: But what I have, he says, I give thee. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, arise and walk. O poverty to be desired; O richer want! He was lame, to whom the rich gave; one poor man gave, and immediately he who was lame was made whole.

3. The Word of God as True Silver

The just man, then, has what he may lend; he has also silver which he lends: he lends his words; this is the silver of the just man; for the sayings of the Lord are chaste sayings, silver tried by fire, tested by the earth, purified sevenfold. This does he lend who receives the Law, who meditates upon the Law, who practices the Law: this Peter lent, this Paul lent, to whom it was said that they should go to the men of the nations. To Cornelius the centurion it is said to Peter, to whom it is said: Arise, go, doubting nothing, for I have sent them; and he arose and went. And below he said: Can we forbid water, that they should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit? And he commanded them to be baptized. This is: Thou shalt lend to the nations, so that thou mayest forgive sins, take away debts: but thou shalt not borrow. For the sinner borrows, and does not pay his sins; because he is a sinner.

To Paul it is said: Thou shalt lend to the nations, who was sent to the nations; to John it is said: Thou shalt lend to the nations; to James and the rest it is said: Thou shalt lend to the nations, to whom it was said: Go, baptize the nations.

4. Blessing and Curse Depend on the Word

It is said to the people of the fathers: If thou keep the commandments of God, thou shalt be blessed, and thou shalt lend the word to the nations. Finally, the words that follow show that this is not said of money: Thou shalt be prince over many nations, but no one shall rule over thee. The Lord thy God will make thee the head, and not the tail, and thou shalt then be above, and not beneath, if thou shalt hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God. And it follows: But if thou hearken not, cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed in the field. And below: Cursed shall be the offspring of thy womb. It is surely not money that makes one blessed, but the knowledge of God, the preaching of the word: if we lend the grace of the Lord, if we bestow the sayings of the Lord upon the needy, if we observe the heavenly commandments.

And on the other hand, the lack of money to be lent does not bring a curse; but if zeal be lacking, if the observance of the heavenly statutes be lacking, thou shalt be cursed.

1. Old Testament Leaders Who Lent to Nations

Finally, the mystery of the Church is clearly expressed. For first he said to the disciple of the Law: If thou hearken to the Law, and keep it, thou shalt lend to the nations; which was done by our fathers. Moses lent to the nations, who acquired proselytes; Joshua the son of Nun lent; Gideon lent; Samuel lent, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha; and if anyone wished to know the word, he went to them: the queen of the South came to hear the wisdom of Solomon.

2. The Nations Now Lend the Word to Israel

When the people of the Jews began not to keep the Law, then strangers began—that is, those from the people of the nations who believed in the Lord Jesus—to lend the interpretation of the Scriptures to that old people. Timothy, born of a Greek father, lent the word to the Jews, when he had received the priesthood; we too, priests in the Church today, lend the word to the Jews who have passed from the Synagogue to the Church; we lend both new and old coin: for that which they had, they now have no longer; they have eyes, and do not see, ears, and do not hear; they have money, and have it not; because they know not its use, they know not its worth, they have not recognized its stamp and form. For had they recognized it, they would never have denied the author of the coin, saying: We will not have this man to reign over us.

Who indeed, returning, having received the kingdom, commanded his servants to be called, to whom he had given money, and he praised those who had put the money out to interest: but to him who kept his master's money idle he replied: Thou knewest that I am an austere man, I take up what I did not lay down, and reap what I did not sow: and why then didst thou not give my money to the bank, that at my coming I might have exacted it with usury?

3. The Incorruptible Money of the Spirit

You have heard what money the good lender possesses, what money acquires good interest, what money brings no infamy upon the lender nor oppresses the debtor, what money rust cannot tarnish nor moth eat through, what money is not of an earthly treasure, but of an eternal one, what money makes the recipient rich, and diminishes nothing in the lender. This money bears interest: not the hundredth part of what was given, but it bears fruit a hundredfold. Open, then, the bosom of your mind, that you may receive the counted sum of this money: fix the gaze of your heart, that you may recognize the image and inscription of this money: examine this money indeed; set it as a table upon the surface of your soul, stable in the virtues, make it foursquare, store it in the treasury of your breast, from which the learned scribe brings forth things new and old. You see what sort of money this is, how it joins together in itself names otherwise held to be at odds, that of creditor and debtor.

I who inveighed against usurers, now myself provoke the debtor. I desire you, then, to be lenders of this money; that those who would borrow may hasten of their own accord to you: through which you may acquire not coin, but a kingdom; through which you may seek not curses, but the grace of blessing.

4. Christ as the Beginning and the End

This money the people of the nations lend, who knew how to receive what was lent, who knew how to discern, who knew how to examine. You refused the unworthy things of spiritual usury, you began to be in want. Of you, then, it was said by the Son of God: The sinner shall borrow, and shall not pay. To you it is said: The stranger who is within you shall rise above you: but you shall go down to the bottom. For he knows not the highest, who is ignorant of Christ: he is always in the depths, who does not rise up to Christ: but the people who receive the word are at the top, this people has the whole patrimony of faith. Of this the Law says: This one shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him: this one shall be the head to you, but you shall be the tail, that is, he shall be first, you last and cast down.

I will take away from Judea the head and the tail, the beginning and the end: the beginning, Christ, who, being asked who he was, answered: The beginning, who also speak to you: and he also calls Christ the end; for he is the end of the Law unto justice to every one that believes. Therefore he who does not believe unto justice has neither beginning nor end, but is himself his own end.

1. The Holy Spirit as God's Pledge to Us

We have learned the lawful usury; let us also learn the pledge which the Law commands to be returned before sunset. Hear what this is from the Apostle who says: God has given a pledge, the Spirit, in our hearts. Now it is called in three ways: pledge, and trust, and deposit. They call that a pledge which is received in return for a loan of money: but that a trust and a deposit which we have committed to someone for the sake of safekeeping. Whence the Apostle says: I know whom I have believed, and I am certain that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day. He also taught that it was a deposit, saying: Keep the good deposit through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. Is the Spirit, then, the guardian of committed gold and silver, or is money kept safe through the Holy Spirit? The spiritual pledge, therefore, is guarded by the Spirit, lest the birds of the air come and carry it away from our hearts.

2. Keeping Faith with Christ's Deposit

Let us ask, then, that Christ keep in us this pledge which he himself has given, and preserve his own deposit and trust. For he has received nothing from us, but he himself has entrusted to us what was not ours. And therefore he is afflicted with a loss of honor who violates another's deposit. If we ought by no fraud to violate what a man has entrusted to us, how much more does it befit us to keep in good faith the divine and spiritual deposit, lest we suffer grave losses of reputation and of profit.

3. The Law's Command to Return the Poor Man's Pledge

This, then, is the pledge which the Law forbids to be taken as a pledge, and violently carried off. For thus the Scripture has it: If your neighbor owes you anything whatsoever, you shall not go into his house to take a pledge; and the man with whom your debt lies shall bring the pledge out to you. But if that man be poor, you shall not sleep with his pledge, but you shall in any case return his pledge to him before the setting of the sun; and he shall sleep in his own garment, and he shall bless you, and it shall be counted to you as mercy.

4. Ezra's Example of Restoring Pledges

You will say to me, then: Behold, the Law forbade the carrying off of the pledge, not the taking of it: but it commanded it to be returned to the poor man, not to all. But concerning bodily pledges, indeed, holy Ezra also has taught us, that you, moneylenders, can no longer set yourselves against the profession of your fathers. For when those who had lent, and had received pledges belonging to others, were commanded to restore them, they said: We restore them, and we require nothing from them (Neh. V, 12). Good fathers, who decreed that the pledges of debtors should be restored: good lenders too, who answered that they would both return the pledges, and not require back the money which they had given. And the judgment of the fathers' decree binds you in these matters, and the profession of the creditors.

5. The Spiritual Debtor Who Loses the Word

There is also another pledge which the spiritual Law forbids to be taken away; and if it has been given, commands it to be returned before the setting of the sun: which the man, the debtor, returns, and which he himself brought forth. Now every one is a debtor who hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it; the evil one comes, and snatches away what was sown in his heart. Do not, then, go into his house, to take that pledge. For woe to him who shall scandalize one of these little ones! If by his own folly he has lost his pledge, you will not have committed the fault. But if he be poor, restore the pledge before the setting of the sun: now the pledge is a garment. If he seems rich to himself, he deceives himself, if he has surrendered his pledge; but if he be poor, having not the riches of the spirit, restore to him his garment before the setting of the sun.

6. Returning the Pledged Garment Before Nightfall

If the matter concerned a bodily pledge, it certainly ought all the more to be returned by day, lest the shame of a naked body be betrayed by the light of day; for darkness does not betray the naked. And if it were objected that the poor man had nothing with which he might be covered while sleeping, then surely it would say that either a blanket or a cloak ought to be returned. But now, by saying garment, it signifies rather the tunic with which we are clothed and covered. Restore, therefore, to the poor man his tunic, that he may sleep in it by night.

7. The Garment of Christ Divided by Lot Among the Evangelists

Does it not seem to you that he signifies that poor man who, when bidden to go with one tunic, is not to require another, sent forth by Christ to preach the Gospel? For he himself is poor in spirit, who is able to sleep: for one satiated with riches has none who allows him to sleep. For the poor man sleeps the sleep of the resurrection, which the rich man cannot sleep, because he is suffocated by riches and pleasures. He sleeps the rest of Christ, who says: I have slept and rested, and have risen up. This is that tunic woven from above with which Christ was clothed, which those soldiers whom you recognize could not tear. For none of them tears the garment of Christ, but they divide it; as it is written: They divided my garments among themselves, and upon my vesture they cast lots.

The evangelists divided his garments among themselves, and upon his vesture, that is, upon the preaching of the Gospel with which the Lord Jesus is clothed even today, they cast a lot. That lot, indeed, which fell upon Matthias, so that he might be added to the number of the twelve apostles, the name of the traitor being excluded. But it is well said of the evangelists that they cast a lot; for a lot hangs, as it were, upon divine trial. And therefore, because they spoke not by their own power, nor did all say the same things; but many said diverse things which another had not said: we recognize that the grace of the Holy Spirit distributed to them, as by lot, the things which each was to speak concerning the works of the Lord Jesus; so that they divided among themselves, according to his will, his deeds to be described.

8. Putting On Christ as a Garment

There is also that tunic which the Apostle shows, saying: Put on the Lord Jesus. This is the tunic which covers our unseemly parts, and surrounds them with more abundant honor in Christ. We put on the bowels of mercy in Christ, we put on the glory of the cross, which seemed to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness. They blush who think it a thing to be blushed at: but far be it from us to glory, save in the cross of the Lord Jesus. These unseemly things of ours have more abundant honor, because through the passion of the Lord an eternal kingdom is prepared for us; for the more one has sinned, the more one loves. Let us therefore be buried together with the Lord Jesus, that we may deserve to be partakers of his resurrection: let us strip off the old man with his deeds, let us put on the new, in whom is the remission of sins.

9. Noah's Sons and the Duty to Restore a Pledge

Good, then, is the covering and clothing that is the word of God. With this clothing the sons of Noah covered the shameful parts of their father, taking a garment upon their shoulders and going backward, lest they see the father's private parts, that is, the bodily things which have a certain shame belonging to human generation: and therefore he who wished to see received the fitting reward of a too-narrow mind, that he should become a servant; for everyone who commits sin is the servant of sin. Whence that one remained among earthly things. Let no one take away this garment from the poor man; or if he has taken it, let not the sun go down upon the one despoiled: let him restore it before, lest the sin of the poor man be able to be ascribed to the money-lender; and lest he begin to labor not only under his own sin but also under another's.

Let this pledge be returned in this night of the age; let one be clothed with this garment in these darknesses of the world.

10. The Two Lots of Leviticus and the Word's Garment

This pledge belongs to that Dominical lot, one of that opposite lot. For we read of two lots in Leviticus, of which it is said: One you shall make for God, the other for the one who is sent away. The one sent away transmits his lot to the money-lenders: the servants of the Lord are in the lot of Christ. Aaron, established in this lot, excluded the calamity of the opposite lot, when, set between the two parts of the people, he did not permit death to creep from the dead into the lot of the living, by the interposition of his own body of this lot the good pledge is the clothing of the Word. Let no one take away this tunic from you, debtors: pledge this tunic to no one, if you wish never to endure disgrace, that you may sleep among the lots like Aaron, that you may sleep between the two Testaments, that you may sleep the sleep of the resurrection, and be able to restore yourselves.

This is the garment which, even if you have pledged it, holy Solomon in the Proverbs urges to be recovered, saying: Take away your garment, for the injurious one passes by.

11. The Garment of Wisdom in Fine Linen and Purple

The garment of wisdom is one of those coverings which wisdom made for herself of fine linen and purple: that is, the garment of faith consists of the preaching of heavenly things, and of the blood of the Lord's passion: by the fine linen the heavenly things are figured, by the appearance of purple the mystery of the sacred blood is declared, by which the heavenly kingdom is conferred. Finally, that the garment of wisdom is signified, the preceding words indicate; for he had said before: Be wise, my son, that your heart may rejoice. And two verses below he says: But the imprudent who come after pay the loss. Take away your garment. Take it away, therefore, lest you incur the loss of imprudence; and lest that most wicked common money-lender, recognizing you stripped of your own garment, should try to expose the confusion of your disgrace, and persuade you to cover yourself with leaves, and, seeing yourself naked, fear to come into the sight of God.

12. Susanna's Silence and the Virtue of a Straitened Word

Restore, he says, to your neighbor in time, straiten your word, and deal faithfully with him; and at all times you will find what is necessary for you. Innocence does not love to defend itself with many words. Susanna had no need of the assertion of her voice: she straitened her word to the Lord, and immediately deserved to obtain the testimony of her own chastity. The elders spoke many things, laboring to cover the truth with the paint of words, but not so the daughter of Judah. She was silent before men, she spoke to God. That womanly defense would have been a matter of shame among the people itself; and while modesty was defended, impudence would have been put forward. She straitened her word, saying to the Lord: You know that they have spoken falsely of me. And the Lord aroused the spirit of the boy Daniel as avenger of her chastity.

13. The Mystical Meaning of a Shortened Reckoning

Straiten, therefore, your word, so that repayment, not talk, may answer the creditor. Or mystically: Straiten your word, that is, complete it. For the Lord will make a word completing and shortening upon the earth, that is, from many computations let a shortened sum come together for you. Subtract what has been spent in various expenses, that you may keep safe what remains: just as the Lord, from the many dispensations of the Jews, from that great computation of sins, finally completed and shortened it, so that the remnant might be saved through the election of grace, and be kept for a seed, through whom he might raise up again the half-dead hope of the Synagogue.

1. The Folly of Borrowing Without a Plan to Repay

How shameful it is, that for the benefit of him who helped you, you should repay him with trouble! When you have defrauded him to whom you owe, afterward, in the time of your own necessity, you will not find a creditor. How unworthy, that when you cannot sustain your own living, and while you still owe nothing, you should suppose that you can both sustain your living and bear a debt! First think whence you will pay it off, and thus take a loan. I gather, he says, the fruits of my fields. But things which do not suffice for use, how will they suffice for the increase of contracted interest? But I sell my possession. And whence come the fruits by which you may live? Interest is not paid off by its own money, but is increased: by counting it accumulates and grows.

2. The Shame of the Debtor and the Ingratitude of Delay

Then, do you not consider the humility and shame of the one asking? Until you receive it, you kiss the hands of the proud money-lender, you lower your voice, lest a clearer sound of your voice offend his ears, lest more people hear you begging. Poverty has no crime, there is no infamy in indigence: but to owe is shameful, not to pay back is shameless. You will ask for delay, when you begin to be pressed at the appointed time of payment: for money you will bring on weariness, you will make excuses about the time, you will build up pretexts; and though you have promised the whole, lest you seem entirely to defraud, you will scarcely restore half. Of a friend you will make an enemy, for honor you will return contempt, for a blessing a curse. Consider how much these things wound your reputation: recognize how much they differ from a good man.

3. Neither Rich Nor Poor Should Borrow at Interest

Therefore, while you are free from chains, call yourself back from the yoke and burden of servitude. Are you rich? Do not take a loan. Are you poor? Do not take a loan. Are you rich? You suffer no necessity of asking. Are you poor? Consider the difficulty of paying back. Wealth is diminished by interest, poverty is not relieved by interest. For evil is never corrected by evil, nor is a wound healed by a wound, but exasperated into a sore.

4. The Mill and the Millstone as Figures of Scripture

See to this, lest while you ask for money, you pledge your mill, or the upper millstone. The mill is that by which fine flour is made, by which the one woman who is taken up grinds fine flour, and the other who is left grinds. Perhaps she is taken up who always grinds the word of God, that she may have fine flour, and makes it a spiritual meal, purges out the old leaven, that there may be a new lump, keeps her own mill, interprets the Scriptures, keeps for herself the upper millstone: but she is left who has pledged her mill. When she has ground something superficially, she pledges the stone that is above the mill. What this stone is, I ask. I have read: The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner. Why upon the mill? Because he himself is the one who helps those who grind: he himself is the one who says: Search the Scriptures, in which you think you have eternal life.

5. Against Taking a Widow's Pledge or the Cornerstone

Do not, money-lender, pledge this upper millstone, lest you fall upon it. For everyone who falls upon this stone will be dashed to pieces: but on whomever it falls, it will crush him. Nor should you take the pledge of a widow. Both are grievous according to the letter, as regards use, in that you take away from the needy man the very instrument of his living, or you deprive a widow of her pledge: but it is more grievous, if you withhold the word from a soul that is the widow of the word, and thereby indicate to her the barrenness of widowhood.

1. The Parable of the Two Debtors

And that you may know that I urge these things with the feeling of one who loves, that you may know that it is lawful and good to lend, I will show you what money-lender you ought to imitate. There were, he says, two debtors to one money-lender, one owed five hundred denarii, the other fifty. As they had nothing with which to repay, he forgave both. Which of them, then, loves him more? Simon the Pharisee answering said: I suppose he to whom he forgave more. And his judgment was praised, the Lord saying: You have judged rightly. The Pharisee judged rightly, though he thought wickedly, supposing that the Lord was more ignorant of the woman's sins than forgiving of them. But his sentence is praised, so that every excuse might be taken from him.

2. The Church as the Woman Who Loved Much

More was forgiven to the Church, which was gathered from the peoples of the nations, since she owed more: but she also paid more, not to one demanding, but to one giving freely. She gave water to the feet of Christ, because she cleansed her own sins; she kissed his feet, bearing the tokens of peace; she poured oil on his feet, herself also bestowing mercy upon the poor. These are the feet of Christ, in these Christ walks most innocently. And she wiped them with the hair of her head. For whoever has the disposition of humility humbles himself to Christ. And therefore, he says, her many sins are forgiven, because she loved much.

3. Divine Mercy Joined with Just Judgment

Observe that the Lord both bestows mercy as one generous, and dispenses judgment with compassion. He gave beforehand by grace, but he knew to whom he was giving. The Jew has nothing to make an excuse. To me, as it were a sinner, he gave more; to him, as an ungrateful man, he granted less. Yet he knew that that man, as ungrateful, would not be able to discharge what he had received, and that the Church, mindful of grace, would pay the more, the more she had deserved.

1. Answering the Charge That Usury Is an Old Custom

You have, then, a money-lender whom to follow, if you wish to be granted praise, if you wish not to be that which is reprehended by us. For we do not disparage the person, but greed. Nor does it escape me that some have said, when two days before this our discourse had touched their feelings: What did the Bishop mean by discoursing against money-lenders, as though something new had been committed, as though our forefathers also did not do this, as though lending at interest were not an old thing? True, nor do I deny it: but the fault too is old. Indeed, sin is from Adam: from him is the fault, from whom also is Eve: from him is the transgression, from whom also is the human condition. But Christ came for this reason, that he might do away with the old, and establish new things; and that grace might renew what fault had made old.

For this reason he offered himself to the Passion, that he might be renewed in spirit, and might absolve all men. But the devil deceived Eve, that he might trip up the man, and bind the inheritance.

2. The Peril of Standing as Surety for a Friend's Debt

What do money-lenders do? They deceive those they lend to, they bind sureties: but Tobias did not seek a pledge, nor demand a surety. Care must therefore be taken that you require a surety, that you bind him under your obligations. Behold, another enemy is prepared. For when you have nothing with which to pay the debt, he will be held liable in your place. You are found in him a deceiver and a cheat, you who have deceived a friend. He will be stripped bare, he will be led into chains in your place: you will endure him as a harsher exactor than the creditor, who says: prod your fellow-citizen whom you pledged for. So it will come about that you yourself also begin to be ungrateful, and pass over that which is written: Do not forget the favor of your surety, for he gave his good soul for you. You will need to say: Who indeed asked you to speak a pledge? For unless you had pledged your word, I would not have received the money.

I received adulterated money, he gave me bronze mixed with gold: would that you had not offered yourself! Perhaps the creditor suborned you, or you him.

3. Guidance on Becoming Surety Without Ruin

Therefore beware lest you bind yourself with another's debt; lest you also be said to have sold this: lest, if a debtor should give you something as thanks, as the practice of friendship allows, you should seem to have bought it. Or if you wish to intervene, being moved by a friend's entreaty and prayers, you blush to refuse; intervene in such a way that, if he should not be able to pay the debt, you know that it must be paid from your own means. Approach this prepared for it. For you have read: Do not become surety beyond your strength; for if you have become surety, think of it as if you were about to repay it. And below: Receive your neighbor according to your ability, and take heed to yourself lest you fall, that is, lest you bind yourself for a greater sum of name than the resources of your means can bear and discharge. For if you give what you have, you have lost wealth, but you have not lost your good faith.

You do not feel a loss of your reputation; you have redeemed a friend without fraud to yourself. Elsewhere too the Proverbs of Solomon admonish you of this, saying: Become surety, be surety for your friend, as one who binds himself as surety for his friends. But if you have not the means, hear what Solomon says: Do not give yourself as surety out of shame for a person; for if you do not have the means to pay, they will take the bedding from under your sides. Therefore the good moneylender will gain favor, the wicked one a curse.

1. The Angel Present in the Hired Servant

But not content with these limits of virtue alone, holy Tobias knew that wages must be paid even to the hired servant, and offered even half; and rightly, in place of the hired servant, he found an angel. And do you know whether perhaps you may be defrauding some just man of his wage, worse still if he be weak? For woe to him who shall scandalize one of these little ones! How do you know whether an angel is in him? For we ought not to doubt that an angel can be in a hired servant, since Christ himself can be there, who is accustomed to be present even in the least.

2. Paying the Hired Servant His Due Wage

Therefore render to the hired servant his wage, and do not defraud him of the wage of his labor; for you too are a hired servant of Christ, and he has hired you into his vineyard, and a heavenly wage is laid up for you. Do not therefore harm a servant working in truth, nor the hired servant giving his life; do not despise the poor man who exercises his life by his own labor and sustains it by his wage. For this is to kill a man, to deny him the due support of his life. And you are a hired servant on this earth: give the wage to the hired servant, so that you too may be able to say to the Lord, when you pray: Give a reward, Lord, to those who wait for you.

3. Tobias's Precepts on Charity as Eternal Interest

Tobias says to you: Luxury is the mother of famine, in which he teaches continence. He also says: Render the wage to every man who has worked for you on the same day, and let not the man's wage remain with you; and your wage will not be diminished. He says to you: Do not drink wine to drunkenness. He says to you: Share your bread with the hungry. See what kind of interest he desires you to earn: And cover the naked with your garments: of all that abounds to you, give alms. At all times bless the Lord. In these things, therefore, is eternal interest, and everlasting usury.