# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1864_S234
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

234 Martin Chemnitz on Usury.

that there is a difference between something being sold outright and the
obligation, burden, and duty of repurchase being attached to it. The price
is therefore to be estimated according to the good judgment of honest
men. 5. It must not be done for usurious fraud; namely, first, when
gratuitous lending is refused to those who need this service because of
their neediness, and the contract of repurchase is offered to them instead,
by which they would be drained, whereas they ought rather to be
supported through gratuitous lending; then, when the buyer reserves for
himself the right to reclaim the principal again — for that makes the
difference, that usury has this as its basis: to demand the principal back
again and also to have something else paid for the use of the principal;
and third, finally, when in the repurchase contract the principal is
disposed of in such a way that the buyer has no right to reclaim it, nor is
the seller bound to restore the principal. This contract can also become
usurious if such an agreement is attached to it, that at the repurchase
somewhat more should be paid than the buyer originally gave; likewise, if
the risk for the thing sold remains with the seller himself until the time
set for repurchase. For this is against the very nature of a sale, as the
laws say: the thing purchased stands at the risk of the buyer.

Further, the agreement for repurchase is added either in perpetuity, so
that whenever either the seller or his heirs pay the price, the buyer is
obliged to return the thing sold; or it is added with the condition that,
if he pays the buyer the price within a fixed time, etc., then if he should
fail to carry out the repurchase within the appointed time, he shall
afterward have no right of repurchase. And such an arrangement is made
not only by the civil laws, but God himself also shows, in Leviticus 25:23
ff., that the civil authority may determine what is to be sold
unconditionally or in perpetuity, and what is to be sold subject to
repurchase; likewise, whether the condition of repurchase should be a
perpetual one, or when it should be limited to a certain time. The laws
also permit the condition to be added that the repurchase may not take
place before a fixed time. Yet these conditions regarding a fixed time are,
for the most part, usurious pretexts, unless an honorable and lawful
cause lies at the bottom of them. One must therefore proceed with
caution here, so that conscience is not injured. Thus some yields are
perpetual, others subject to repurchase, which can be repurchased either
at any time or within a fixed time; and there is only a difference in price,
as indeed, with regard to redeemable yields, it has been ordained in the
German Imperial Diet that one should be bought for twenty; in perpetual
yields, accordingly, the ratio may be thirty to one. In France, where
commercial dealings are on a larger scale, twelve to one has been fixed
for redeemable yields, but twenty-five to one for perpetual ones.