# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1864_S257
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Lehre und Wehre.

Volume X.    September 1864.    No. 9.

Martin Chemnitz on Usury.
(Translated and communicated by resolution of the St. Louis District
Pastoral Conference from Loci theologici Dr. M. Chemnitii, ed. op. et
studio Polycarpi Leyseri, D. Francof. et Witteberg. Ed. nov. 1653 fol.
Tom. P. II, fol. 158—170.)

(Continuation and Conclusion.)

I have treated the foregoing at somewhat greater length, because I
regard this question as the chief question in this disputation, from
whose elucidation much can be judged. Urbanus Regius puts it thus: If two
parties make such an agreement that the one who lends does not bring the
debtor into loss and does not desire to ruin him, and the debtor, through
the use of the borrowed money, can only gain, so that he can return
something above the principal without loss, and, should he suffer loss,
is not compelled thereto — in that case, he says, I hold that love should
be allowed to rule, according to the saying: All things whatsoever ye
would, etc. This is true, because it is nothing other than a partnership
contract. But if such an agreement is made at the time of lending, it
cannot be absolved of usurious godlessness. The safest answer is that a
definite contract be specifically named, for then the conscience will not
be in doubt, but will be able to have a certain ground on which to rest.

There is also dispute concerning the antichresis, that is, the use of a
pledge (as it is called), when a creditor, instead of a mortgage, that
is, a pledge, took a piece of land for himself and received its produce
instead of interest. Such antichreses were devised, at the time of
Justinian, when a moderation of usury was established, by greed, in
order to bring usuriously to itself, for a moderate sum of borrowed
money, the produce of an entire estate, and in this way the farmers were
driven from their possessions. Such an antichresis Justinian therefore
forbade with respect to farmers. But if the antichresis is to be lawful,
it must be made in the manner of a repurchase contract, so that it has
the same conditions as the latter.

In the same way the disputation concerning the lawful compensation for
interest (that is, the loss arising to the creditor through the lending