# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1864_S198
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

198 Martin Chemnitz on Usury.

oppression, or a secret biting of one's neighbor. The Christian definition is this: "Usury is every profit that is demanded for what has been lent or borrowed out." Or still more properly: "Whoever lends with the intention of a profit is a usurer." For when he says: "Hoping for nothing again" (Luke 6:35), this indicates an intention of profit, since otherwise one would not have lent.

The descriptions of the church fathers are more indications than definitions. For example, Ambrose: "Usury is everything that is added to the capital." Jerome: "In usury an overcharge is reckoned." Augustine: "Usury is when someone demands more, in any matter, than he has given."

The simplest and surest way, however, both to establish and to explain definitions, is when one gathers together what belongs to the essence or nature of the thing defined, and divides it into certain parts. To the definition of usury there belongs, therefore: 1. That it occurs in a loan-contract, Exodus 22:25, Deuteronomy 23:20. Now to the essence of lending there belong four elements. First, that the thing is transferred from one to another in such a way that it becomes the property of the one who receives it. For it is held that in Latin the thing lent is therefore called mutuum, because there what was meum (mine) becomes tuum (thine). Second, it must be a service rendered gratis, for otherwise it would be either a selling or a renting. Third, the power to use the thing lent is given not forever, but for a certain time, for otherwise it would be a gift. Fourth, there is added the obligation that it be restored — not indeed the same thing in number, but another thing either of the same kind, or of the same quantity and of the same value. Psalm 37:21: The wicked borrows and does not repay, etc. And indeed, by right, the risk of the capital lies with the recipient, if it is lost, for example, either by accident, or by theft, or by fire. To the definition of usury there belongs, 2., that beyond the restitution of the capital something more is demanded, either on the basis of an agreement, or by intention. Hence usury is called marbit and tarbit, as has been said above. 3. When something is demanded beyond the capital on account of the money lent, or on account of the service rendered by the lending. For a lawful reimbursement of interest, namely when the debtor has actually given cause for loss, is no usury. Further, when the debtor, through the use of the borrowed money, has either escaped a loss or has gained something, and, recognizing that he is bound by gratitude to make some return, gives the creditor something over and above the capital — and when the latter accepts it without any agreement, without having demanded it, and without any