A a discourse against usurers for the edification of life, I myself should descend into the same arena, having yoked together couples of oxen or asses with which I might contend against horses adorned with the crowns of victory; for small things are always seen alongside great ones; and the moon shines while the sun shines; and a ten-thousand-ton ship sailing, driven by the intensity of the winds, is followed by a small dinghy crossing the same sea; and again, when men are competing in athletic contests, boys exercise themselves in the same place. Let this, then, be the request of my intention.
But you, whatever person you may be, hate the way of the huckster, B since you are a human being. Love human beings, and not silver; stop the sin at this point. Utter at some time to your dearest interests the voice of John the Baptist: "Brood of vipers" (Matt. III, 7), depart from me. You are the destruction of those who keep you and accept you. You bring a little pleasure, but as time goes on, the poison scattered by you turns into bitter malice for the soul. You block the path of life; you shut the gates of the kingdom. You refresh the eyes and ears for a short time, but meanwhile, you are the cause and origin of eternal pain. Having said these things, renounce usury, and pledge yourself to love of the poor, and do not turn away him who wishes to borrow. Because of poverty he supplicates you and sits at your doors; being in need, he flees to your wealth, so that you may become a helper for his necessity. C But you do the opposite; you who should be an ally become an enemy; for you do not work with him so that he might be freed from the necessity pressing upon him, and pay back the loan to you, but you sow evils for the one in straits, stripping the naked individual, wounding the wounded one, piling cares upon cares, and adding sorrows to sorrow. For he who receives gold to be returned with interest, receives a pledge and earnest of poverty, bringing home destruction in the guise of a benefit. For just as one who, overcome by the entreaties of a feverish man, and one whom the most intense heat and excessive thirst are agitating, and who urgently begs for a drink, offers him neat wine under the pretext of philanthropy, gladdens the sick man for a very brief time while he drains the cup; but when a short time has passed, D he causes a fierce and tenfold more severe fever to...
A produce. Thus, he who offers gold, full of poverty, to a needy man, does not ease his necessity, but rather increases his calamity. Do not, therefore, live an inhuman life under the guise of philanthropy, nor become a physician who kills, having the appearance of saving out of wealth, as the other does by his craft; but by your choice, you are using the person who has entrusted himself to you for his destruction.
Idle and greedy is the life of the usurer. He knows not the labor of agriculture, nor the thought of commerce; but he sits in one place, feeding wild beasts in his own home. He wishes everything to grow for him without sowing or ploughing; his plough is the pen; his field, the paper; his seed, the ink; his rain, time, which unknown to him increases and nurtures the fruit of his money. His sickle is the demand for payment; his threshing floor, the house in which he winnows the fortunes of the wretched. He looks upon the belongings of all as his own. He prays for calamities for people, so that they may be forced to come to him. He hates those who are self-sufficient, and counts those who have not borrowed B as his enemies. He haunts the courts, so that he may find someone pressed by creditors, and he follows the tax collectors as vultures follow camps and armies. He carries around his purse and shows the bait of the hunt to those who are choking, so that, gaping at it because of their need, they may swallow with the usury the hook as well.
He counts his profit every day and is never filled with desire. He is vexed at the gold laid up in his house, because it lies idle and unproductive. He imitates the farmers who always take seed from their heaps. He does not leave the wretched gold untouched, but passes it from hand to hand. You see, then, that one who is wealthy and has much gold often might not have even one coin in his house, but has his hopes in papers, his substance in bonds, having nothing and possessing everything; he uses his life in a manner contrary to the apostolic letter, giving everything C to those who ask, not by a philanthropic impulse, but by a greedy disposition. For he chooses temporary poverty, so that, like a hardworking servant, the gold, having labored, may return to him with interest. You see how the hope of future gain empties the house and makes the one who otherwise has much gold a man who possesses nothing temporarily. And what is the cause of this? It is the writing on the paper, the agreement
or promise of one in distress. "I will repay with interest," he says; "I will restore the principal with profit." Then I urge and admonish him not to break his word. And the debtor, though destitute, finds trust because of a promissory note. But God, who is rich and makes promises, is not even heard, despite a clear and resounding voice. "Give, and I will repay," He cries out in the Gospels, in a public document known to the whole world, which four evangelists wrote in place of a single notary, with all Christians from the time of the salvation of the world as their witnesses. You have Paradise as a pledge—a pledge certainly worthy, upon which you may confidently rely. And if you seek something here as well, the whole world is the property of this honest debtor. Examine clearly the wealth of the One who seeks this kindness from you, and you will find His riches. For every gold mine is the property of this debtor. Every metal of silver and copper and the rest of the materials B are subject to His dominion and rule. Look up at the vast heaven; observe the infinite sea; consider the breadth of the earth; count the creatures nourished upon it; all are slaves and possessions of Him whose poverty you despise. Be moderate and fair, O man. Do not insult God, nor deem Him of lower or less honorable status than money-changers, to whom you yield your trust without doubt if they but give a surety. Give to an immortal surety. Believe in a promissory note that is invisible, yet of such a kind that it cannot be lost. Do not demand interest, but offer kindness without hope of gain, and you will see God repaying the grace with an addition.
C But if this discourse seems strange and contrary to your expectations, I have testimony at hand, by which it is clear that God returns the favor in many different ways to those who piously make expenditures and perform acts of kindness. For when Peter asked and said: "Behold, we have left everything and followed you; what then shall be for us?" "Amen, I say to you," He says, "everyone who has left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or fields, shall receive an hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life." D Do you see the generosity? Do you see the goodness? The most shameless money-lender labors to double the principal, but God, of His own accord, gives an hundredfold to the one who does not oppress his brother. Obey, therefore, God who counsels you, and you shall gather interest that is free from sin. Why do you wear yourself out with sinful cares,
numbering the days, calculating the months, dreaming of the principal sum, imagining additions, fearing the deadline, lest it arrive fruitless like a summer struck by hail. The lender A scrutinizes the borrower’s actions—his travels, his movements, his changes of residence, his business dealings—and if some sad rumor arrives, that so-and-so has fallen among robbers, or that through some circumstance his prosperity has been changed into poverty, he sits with hands clasped, he groans continuously, he weeps copiously; he unrolls the contract, he laments his gold in those letters, bringing forth the bond like the garment of a dead son; his grief is stirred more hotly from that than from anything else. And if the loan is a maritime one, he sits by the shores, he worries about the movements of the winds, he constantly asks those putting into port whether a shipwreck has been heard of anywhere, whether those sailing encountered danger. He chills his soul B with the remnants of his daily anxiety. To such a man it must be said: Cease, O man, from your perilous care. Put away your agonizing hope, lest while seeking interest you lose even the principal. You seek revenue and additions to your wealth from the poor man, doing something similar to one who, from a field dried up by intense heat, would wish to take stacks of grain, or a multitude of grapes from a vine after a hailstorm has visited it, or the fruit of children from a barren womb, or the nourishment of milk from women who have not conceived. No one attempts things that are contrary to nature and impossible; for besides achieving nothing, he would also incur laughter as a mockery. God alone is omnipotent, who from desperate things finds the means and creates things beyond hope and expectation, now commanding C a spring to flow from a rock, then raining down from heaven an unusual and strange bread, and again making sweet the bitter Marah by the touch of wood; and making the womb of the barren Elizabeth fruitful, and giving Samuel to Anna, and to Mary the firstborn in virginity. These alone are the works of the omnipotent hand. But you, do not seek interest on bronze and gold, things that are barren by nature, nor force poverty to do the things that the wealthy do, nor demand excessive payments from the one who is begging for the principal. For do you not know that the necessity of asking for a loan is a fitting cause for mercy? Therefore, the divine Scripture, which is the introductory writing D of piety, everywhere dictates…
A that usury be forbidden. If you lend money to your brother, you shall not press him. And Grace, abounding in the fountain of goodness, legislates the remission of debts; where, indeed, it acts kindly, saying: *And do not lend to those from whom you hope to receive* (Luke 6:34). And elsewhere, in a parable, it severely punishes the harsh and unmerciful servant who, while his fellow servant was prostrating himself, was not moved to compassion, nor did he remit the trivial debt of a hundred denarii, even though he himself had received the remission of ten thousand talents. Further, our Savior, the teacher of all virtue, while prescribing to his disciples a rule of prayer that contains nothing B superfluous, added this article to the form of prayer, as if it were the most effective means to move God to mercy: *And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors* (Matt. 6:12). How then will you pray, O usurer C? With what kind of conscience will you seek a good request from God, you who receive everything [for yourself], and D [yet ignore the commandment to give]? Or do you not know that your prayer is a reminder of inhumanity?
What have you remitted, that you seek remission? Of whom have you had mercy, that you implore mercy? And if you do give alms, is it not [the product of] your inhuman exactions, full of the calamities, tears, and groans of others? But if the A needy person knew from where you bestow your alms, he would certainly not receive them, fleeing, as it were, from tasting fraternal flesh and the blood of his own kin; he would say to you with the freedom of a sound mind: "Do not feed me, O man, from fraternal tears. Do not give to a needy person bread made from the groans of those who fare as poorly as I. Return to your fellow man that which you have unjustly snatched away, and I shall return you thanks." What benefit do you provide, when you make many poor, and comfort only one? If there were not a multitude of usurers, there would not be such a multitude of the needy. Dissolve your faction, and we shall all have what is sufficient. Everyone accuses the usurers, and there is no law, prophet, or evangelist that can remedy this evil. Such as the divine Amos thon B thunders: "Hear this, you who crush the poor in the morning and oppress the needy on the earth, saying, When will the month pass, and we shall sell our wares?" For not even fathers rejoice at the birth of children as much as usurers rejoice at the completion of the months.
They call their sin by honorable names; they call their gain "philanthropic" (human-loving), in imitation of the Greeks, who (41) call certain man-hating and murderous demons—instead of their true name—the Eumenides (Kindly Ones). Is it philanthropy? For is not the interest—an exaction that crushes households, exhausts wealth, and makes those of good birth live a life worse than that of slaves—something that delights for a short while at the beginning, but prepares a bitter life for them afterwards? For just as birds, which are entrapped by bird-catchers, are delighted at first by the scattered seeds and frequent the places where they find C abundant food for themselves, but a little later, once caught in the nets, they perish; so too those who take interest on loans, having been well-off for a short time, later fall away even from their ancestral home. And mercy is exiled from the corrupt and avaricious souls (45) of usurers; and seeing the very house of the debtor set up for sale, they are not moved to pity, but rather [eagerly] hasten the sale.
so that by receiving the money more quickly, they may bind some other wretched person in the toils of usury, after the manner of tireless and insatiable hunters, who, having encircled one valley with nets and caught all the beasts lurking within it, drive their stakes A to neighboring valleys, and from these to others, and so on, until they have emptied mountains of their game. With what eyes, then, do you, being such a man, look up to heaven? And how do you ask for the remission of sins? Or perhaps you say this in your prayers out of stupor, that which the Savior taught us: "And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors"? How many have destroyed themselves by the noose on account of usury, or thrown themselves headlong into rivers, judging death more tolerable than the usurer, leaving behind orphaned children for whom poverty has begun to be a stepmother that is neither kind nor gentle! But those illustrious usurers, indeed, do not even pity houses bereft of parents; but they drag away and plunder the heirs, to whom perhaps nothing has fallen by inheritance except the noose, and they demand gold from those who procure their own sustenance from the generosity of others. When, however, the death of the debtor is—as is fitting—reproached to them, and when some mention the noose so that they might blush, they are not affected by any shame at all for this deed, nor do they tremble in their souls, but rather they pour forth from an ulcerated heart words full of impudence: "And will it be ascribed to our character," they say, "if that wretch and man of poor mind, born under an unhappy star, compelled by the necessity of fate, has laid violent hands upon himself?" For usurers also philosophize, and become disciples of the Egyptian mathematicians, when there is need to compose an apology for their crimes and detestable deeds and their homicides. C Such a one, therefore, must be addressed with this speech: "You are that unfortunate birth, and that unhappy necessity of the stars. For if you had lightened his care, and had released even a part of the debt, and had accepted a portion with remission, he would not have hated the light as something hateful, nor would he have become his own executioner. And with what eyes will you look upon the murdered man at the time of the resurrection (52)? For you will both come to the tribunal of Christ, where usury is not calculated, but the account of a life lived will be judged. And what will you answer when accused before the incorrupt judge, when He says to you: 'You had the law, the prophets, the evangelical injunctions. You heard them all together, at once, crying out with one voice to love and philanthropy, with these admonishing you: Thou shalt not lend at usury to thy brother (55),' and others saying: 'Thou shalt not give thy silver at usury'; and others, 'If you lend to your brother..."
thou shalt not oppress him.' A Matthew also in the parables cried out, announcing the Lord's command, saying: 'Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because you asked me: oughtest not thou also to have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee?' And the Lord being angry, delivered him to the tormentors, until he should pay all that was due unto him. Then a late and fruitless repentance will take hold of you; heavy groanings will seize you, and an inevitable punishment. Gold will be of no help there, nor will silver bring relief. The taking of usury is more bitter than gall. These are not empty threats of words, but the very truth of the matter; they bear witness to the future judgment before experience makes it known, wherefore a prudent man, and one who has a care for the future, will zealously take heed.
Ut B truly I might provide some benefit to those listening, by recounting something that happened in our own age, in the house of a certain usurer, before that judgment of God, attend: even if perhaps many of you already have this, which I am about to recount, known to you.
There was a certain man in this city (I shall not speak his name, fearing to seem to want to mock the dead by naming them), whose sole art was to lend and to derive some profit from detestable usury. Seized by this disease of avarice, he became tenacious and sordid to himself and his own (as misers are wont to be), in that he would not set out a sufficient table, nor change his garments except when compelled by greatest necessity, nor provide for his children the necessities for subsistence, nor make use of baths from fear of the C fee of the three obols; but he was devising every way, whence he might further increase the count of his monies. Nor did he consider any person a trustworthy guardian of his purse, neither son, nor servant, nor money-changer, nor key, nor seal; but depositing his gold in the holes of the walls, and smearing over the mud on the outside, he kept the treasure known to no one, changing places from place to place, and walls from walls, and cleverly scheming to lie hidden from all. Suddenly he departed from life, having declared to none of his family where the gold had been buried. And so he himself was buried D also, having gained this one thing, namely, that he himself was hidden away under the earth. But his children, when they hoped that they would be the richest of all the citizens, sought everywhere, inquired of one another, examined the servants, dug up the floors of the houses, undermined the walls, rummaged through the houses of neighbors and acquaintances, and "having moved every stone," as the saying goes, they did not find even an obol. They lead their lives in...
the present time as exiles, bereft of home and hearth, every day detesting their father’s folly.
Such, therefore, O usurers, was your friend and companion—a man who ended his life in a manner worthy of his habits, a vain and fickle financier who, though he struggled with countless troubles and hunger itself, procured for himself eternal torments as if by hereditary right, while leaving poverty to his children. You do not know, miserable men, for whom you are scraping together and hoarding. The turns of fortune's wheel are various; there are infinite impostors, and many a treacherous man or bandit disturbs both land and sea. See to it that, having lost your gold, your main profit does not turn out to be sin. B "But this speech," they say, "is odious and heavy for us." I know your grumbling and the gnashing of your teeth, even though I endeavor more often from this higher place to strengthen you in the right path. "He begrudges," they say, "those who receive benefits and those who are in need. Therefore, we shall refrain from giving loans." And what life will the needy and afflicted lead? Indeed, an utterance worthy of their habits, and an objection fitting for those who are darkened by the shadows of riches. For they do not have a sufficiently strengthened judgment of mind to be able to understand what is said. Hence, they take the warnings of those who advise them rightly in the contrary sense; for just as they threaten, while I am speaking, that they will not give loans to the poor, so they mutter and threaten that they will shut their doors against the needy when they come.
I, for my part, first preach and proclaim that one ought to give as a gift. Then, I also exhort one to lend. For a loan is a second form of gift. But this should be done without interest or surcharges, C just as the divine Word has commanded us. For both the one who does not give a loan and the one who gives it with interest are equally liable to punishment. For the inhumanity of the former, and the huckster's gain of the latter, have both been condemned. But these men flee to the opposite extreme, promising to withhold the gift altogether. Yet this is a shameless defiance, a manic rivalry against justice, a strife and war against God. "For," says one, "I will either not give, or if I lend, I will fix the contract with interest."
So then, regarding the usurers, the argument has contended sufficiently against them, and the points of the indictment are shown clearly, as if in a court of law. And may God grant them repentance for their evil deeds. But toward those who readily take loans and cast themselves recklessly into the D hooks of usury, I shall say no word, judging as sufficient for them the counsel which our inspired Father Basil wisely worked out in his own treatise on this subject, in which he spoke at greater length to those who take loans thoughtlessly than to those who lend out of avarice.
OF OUR HOLY FATHER GREGORY, ON LOVING THE POOR AND EMBRACING BENEVOLENCE, ORATION I
A The president of this Church, and those teachers of pure piety and of a life lived according to virtue, have much in common with the instructors and masters of the primary elements of letters. For just as those, having received from their parents children who are still infants and babbling, do not immediately burden them with the hidden precepts of the disciplines, but first trace the letter alpha in wax, and the letters that follow, teaching them to know their names and exercising their hands upon the inscribed forms; and after this, advance them to syllables, and then instruct them in the pronunciation of words; in the same way, the leaders of the Church, first leading the listener to the rudimentary elements of instruction, then step-by-step reveal those things which are more perfect and more recondite.
Since, therefore, during the two previous days we have disciplined the lust of the throat and the belly, do not suppose that today too I shall speak of the customary things, that it is good to disdain meats, and to abstain from wine, which is a companion of laughter and madness; and to restrain the cooks, and the hand of the cupbearer, weary from preparing and pouring out cups. For these things have been sufficiently spoken of by me, and you have demonstrated the effectiveness of the counsel by your own deeds. But since you have practiced this first lesson, it is right to move forward to impart, in turn, teachings that are greater and more robust.
B There is, therefore, also a bodiless fast and an immaterial self-control, which turns toward the soul the abstinence from evil; and it is for the sake of that fast that this abstinence from foods has also been prescribed to us. Fast, therefore, from malice; C for this kind of fasting—and this degree of self-control, which is removed from the body and from matter, and which respects the soul alone—is accomplished by our refraining from vices; and of this fast, the grace...