# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1864_S180
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

180 Martin Chemnitz on Usury.

who practice usury, not children of the Most High, but like the notorious sinners. Paul, in 1 Thessalonians 4:6, includes usury under the word "overreaching" (πλεονεξία), and adds: The Lord is the avenger of all these things. 1 Timothy 6:9: Those who desire to become rich fall into temptation and a snare, and many foolish and harmful lusts, which plunge men into ruin and destruction; which some have craved after, and have strayed from the faith; that is, those who, not content with the lawful contracts which Scripture approves, engage — if I may say so — in other practices, sin not only against the second table, but stray from the faith; and these are not venial sins, but such as plunge one into ruin. These are the testimonies of Scripture.

But it is a matter for admiration that, although covetousness, in this corruption of nature, devises various pretexts for itself, usury has nevertheless been harshly condemned even by the more sensible heathen, both philosophers and lawgivers. And this is a wholly manifest testimony that usury conflicts not only with Scripture, but also with the law of nature itself, which Paul calls the truth of God written into the hearts of men. The Church Fathers rightly derive the abomination of usury from the Seventh Commandment. Jerome writes: "To seek usury, or to defraud, or to rob, are not different from one another, since the Seventh Commandment forbids all of these." Ambrose: "If anyone takes usury, he commits theft; he shall therefore not have life." Augustine writes to Macedonius: "Which of the two is more cruel: he who takes something from the rich man, or he who ruins the poor man through usury?" Just as theft, robbery, and the like are evil in themselves and cannot be done in a good manner, so too is usury. And to ask about a moderate usury is the same question as whether a moderate adultery could be good. And just as it is the duty of the authority to punish robbery, adultery, murder, and the like, so it must also curb usury.

Besides these testimonies, both the scholastic writers and the philosophers have certain arguments by which they seek to show what an abominable vice usury is. For the sake of remembrance I will note the principal ones. The arguments of the scholastics are these: 1. In things where the use of the thing is itself its consumption, the use is not separated from the possession or from the thing itself; just as wine and the use of wine are not sold separately. It is therefore unjust to sell the use of money over and above the repayment of the capital, which is what happens in usury. 2. The mutuum (the thing lent) is so called because thereby what is Meum (mine) becomes Tuum (yours). But just as it would be unjust for me to sell you what is already yours, so it is unjust to demand anything for the use of the money that has now (through the lending) become another's. 3. In usury, money again begets