# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1864_S235
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Martin Chemnitz on Usury. 235

In Gerson's time, some condemned, in public writings, what he himself
called "censuality"*), and in the year 1525 much was written, and
seditiously undertaken, against the repurchase contract as a usurious one.
But after weighing the true grounds, the answer is easy. For one owes no
alms to people of the third estate, and Scripture does not approve of such
people enriching themselves to another's loss. What is therefore bought
of their goods according to the laws is not usury. Nor is the sale in any
way impaired by the added condition of repurchase — not only quite
plainly according to civil law, but also according to God's own ordinance,
Leviticus 25:24. And that it is a true sale is evident from the fact that all
its causes come together: the material cause, for it takes place in a thing
which can be sold and bought; the efficient cause, because it is carried
out by those who are able to sell and to buy; the formal cause, for it
involves price, goods, and agreement; the final cause, because in it an
exchange of mutual restitution takes place, that is, an exchange of what
each of the two parties needs. Nor does it conflict with love, when it is
used lawfully. For the agreement of repurchase is added in favor of the
seller, so that, if he does not want to alienate his property, he may fix
the yields, or, if he does not want to give up the right of possession
forever, he may reserve for himself the right of repurchase. The lesser
advantage, however, is on the buyer's side, on account of that obligation.
And indeed, when property — for example, a piece of land — is bought
according to such an agreement, the matter is clear. But concerning the
purchase of yields many dispute; yet the matter itself, when rightly
weighed, shows that this contract, lawfully carried out, does not conflict
with love. For whoever sells only the yields on a piece of land retains the
right of ownership and the usufruct, and can, little by little, gather so
much from it that he is able, according to the agreement, to pay the price
of repurchase. But when the land itself is sold under this agreement,
then, because both the right of possession and the usufruct are
transferred to the buyer, the price of repurchase must be obtained from
elsewhere.

Some have disputed that, in these yields, the principal is given back
piecemeal, and that, once the yields added together equal the principal,
everything received beyond that is usury, because it is a gain over and
above the principal. But in the repurchase contract it is not the principal
itself that is sold; rather, by the transfer of the right of possession over
the principal to another, something apart from and beyond the principal
is bought, as happens in every purchase. It is therefore not usurious,
provided it does not conflict with love. The repurchase contract is
therefore not in itself sinful, when it is carried out lawfully; yet usurious
fraud can easily creep into it, as has been said above.

*) That is, the purchase of rents or revenues. The Editors.