# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1860_S324
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

324                    Fifteen Theses on Usury.

which is to be added to what was lent as its produce, as belonging to
what was lent because it arose through it.

3. That Deuteronomy 23:19 [23,20] says: "You shall not charge your
brother interest, interest on money or interest on food, or interest on
anything that is lent for interest" — that is, "bites off or nips away,
diminishes the property of one's neighbor."

B. That such a lending does not cease to be a lending at usury on
account of any particular quality or any particular condition of the
person of the lender is proved by:

1. That the prohibition of usury in Scripture is a general one, without
any exception whatever regarding the person of the lender.

2. That the quality or condition of the lender is only an accident of
the action itself, the essence of the action — that is, the taking or
demanding of another's goods as an increase to the lent capital —
remaining unchanged.

C. That likewise no particular quality or situation of the person of
the debtor makes such an action a non-usurious one is proved by

1. That Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:35-37 [call] the lending described
above, made to poor debtors; Nehemiah 5:11, [made] to debtors who
owned fields, vineyards, olive-groves and houses; Deuteronomy 23:19-20,
[made] to debtors generally without distinction, whether they are rich
or poor — in all these cases alike, a lending at usury.

2. That the quality or situation of the debtor does not change the
essence of the action.

D. That likewise no particular value of the surplus demanded or
taken — however small, or however fixed as permissible by civil law —
above the capital lent makes this lending a non-usurious one is proved
by:

1. That Holy Scripture excepts no value of the surplus that would not
be regarded as usurious interest.

2. That the interest drawn from the exchange-bank, permitted by the
state, is called usury in Luke 19:23.

3. That the different values of the surplus do not alter the essence
of the action.

E. That every so-called taking of interest on lent capital is a
lending at usury is evident from the fact that it is only one kind of
the action described in the thesis, and that the name "interest,"
which denotes, taken together, the diminished value of a damaged thing
along with the further detrimental consequences arising from it, is
only improperly applied to usurious interest.