CHAPTER XII USURY IN Rome the evil of usury was early apparent, robbing numbers of the citizens of their independence, and the repeated attempts of the legislation to suppress it were unavailing, means being found to evade the regulations. With the growth of Christianity grew up a body of doctrine on the subject. True, earlier writers-Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca, among others-had philosophised already, and in fact Aristotelian teaching of the barrenness of money and the consequent injustice of the making of gain therefrom apart from labour, was destined to have a marked influence, being the argument which most easily gripped the public mind.2 But it was the direct injunctions of the Old Testament upon which the Fathers, Cyprian and Tertullian, for example, based their condemnation of usury.3 After the recognition of Christianity under Constantine, the appeal was still to the Scriptures, primarily to the New Testa . Cunningham, Christian Opinion on Usury, pp. 5, 55; Roscher, Principles of Political Economy, ii. p. 129, note 3. Cf. Wilson, Discourse uppon usurye, Epistle, eighth page. Ashley, Introduction to English Economic History and Theory, I. i. p. 152; Endemann, Studien in der Romanischkanonistischen Wirthschafts- und Rechtslehre, i. p. 9; Goldschmidt, Universalgeschichte des Handelsrechts, p. 138. 3 Funk, Geschichte des kirchlichen Zinsverbotes, p. 2. ment but to the Old also, and there was added the weight of the pronouncements of the Fathers.2 But later that was not allowed to suffice. New points of vantage were sought for. As early an authority as Lactantius had pointed to the dictates of ordinary humanity; 3 and, whilst men still had recourse to the authority of the Scriptures and the Fathers, there was amongst later writers a continuous attempt to reach the conscience by reference to natural conceptions of right and wrong.4 And their attempt was made all the more easy since in early times, before the organisation of industry and commerce, loans were almost entirely contracted to meet some pressing need, and interest was, more often than not, synonymous with the oppression of the poor.5 Roscher6 has well summarised the causes which give rise to the "strong aversion to the taking of interest prevalent among nations in a low stage of civilisation. Industrial enterprises of any importance do not as yet exist here at all, and agriculture is most advantageously carried on by means of a great many parcels of land, but with I Funk, Geschichte des kirchlichen Zinsverbotes, pp. 3, 4; Ashley, Introduction to English Economic History and Theory, I. i. pp. 148, 151, 152; Schmoller, Zur Geschichte der nationalökonomischen Ansichten, p. 555; Roscher, Principles of Political Economy, ii. pp. 129, 130. 2 Funk, ibid., p. 33. 3 Funk, ibid., p. 2. We hear of high dignitaries of the Church engaging in the business of interest in the early Christian era: ibid., p. 3: cf. ibid., p. 1. 4 Funk, ibid., pp. 5, 34 sqq. 5 Roscher, ibid., p. 130; Ratzinger, Geschichte der Kirchlichen Armenpflege, p. 401. According to Knies, Politische Oekonomie, pp. 118, 119, it was regard for the poor which moved the Church to action. Knies gives his ground for supposing that it cannot have sprung from complete ignorance of the productiveness of money. 6 Ibid., p. 128. See also Cunningham, Christian Opinion on Usury, p. 42. little capital. The purchase of land is so rare, and hampered by legal restrictions to such a degree, that loans for that purpose are almost unheard of. And just as seldom does it happen, by reason of the superabundance of land, that the heir of a land-owner borrows capital to effect an adjustment with his co-heirs, and thus enter alone into the possession of the estate." Thus the taking of any interest, not merely of unusually high interest, was reprobated.1 Whilst, therefore, the writings of the early Fathers are for the most part discussions on various passages of Scripture,2 the Schoolmen and Canonists take a different ground. They refer back to Aristotle's teaching, but "the whole subject of buying and selling is treated-not with reference to the barrenness of money- . . . but with regard to greed of gain on the part of the dealers. The Aristotelian distinction between bartering for the sake of common convenience and dealing for the sake of gain is indeed quoted, but chiefly to prove that some sort of trading is right and necessary." 3 Thomas Aquinas, in fact, admitted the justice of interest as a compensation for actual loss (damnum emergens), and later Schoolmen added also the case of interest for cessation of gain (lucrum cessans).4 Below, Wucher, p. 1362; Knies, Politische Oekonomie, pp. 118, 119; Funk, Geschichte des kirchlichen Zinsverbotes, p. 6. The theory that only the taking of above a certain rate of interest was usurious, appeared in the sixteenth century: Ashley, Introduction to English Economic History and Theory, I. i. p. 154. 2 Cunningham, Christian Opinion on Usury, p. 3. 3 Cunningham, ibid., p. 28. Cf. Ashley, ibid., pp. 152-4 ; Ratzinger, Geschichte der Kirchlichen Armenpflege, p. 399. 4 Ratzinger, ibid., p. 400; Cunningham, ibid., pp. 31, 32. For the general development of opinion among the Schoolmen in favour of interest on the ground of damnum emergens, lucrum cessans, risico, and mora, see Funk, ibid., pp. 33-42 |
