1,1. After reading the prophetical book which is entitled Tobias, although the Scripture has fully made known to us the virtues of the holy prophet, nevertheless I think I should present to you an epitomized account containing an enumeration of his merits and works, in order that what the Scripture has treated more extensively in a historical way we may describe more concisely, collecting the classes of his virtues as in a sort of summary.
2. He was a just, merciful, hospitable man; and endowed with this troop of virtues he underwent the misery of captivity, which he bore humbly and patiently, sorrowing for the common injustice rather than for his own, and not complaining that the approbation of his virtues had been of no avail to him, but rather judging that this outrage committed against him was less than the price of his sins.
3. He incurred punishment under the decree that none of the children of the captivity should give burial to the dead, but he was not restrained by the prohibition so much as spurred on lest he seem to abandon the duty of piety through fear of death; for the reward of mercy was the penalty of death. As a criminal discovered guilty of such an offense, he could scarcely at length as a needy exile-since his patrimony had been seized -be restored by a friend to his family.
4. Again he began to engage in these duties, if he had any provisions, seeking a stranger with whom he might take his food. And so when he had returned weary from performing the office of burial, and a supply of food had been set before him, sending out his son he sought a companion for his banquet. While the guest was being summoned, announcement having been made of the remains of an unburied body, he left the banquet and did not think it pious that he should himself take food while a lifeless body lay publicly exposed.
5. This was his daily task, and indeed it was a great one; for if the law requires us to cover the living who are naked, how much rather should we cover the dead! If we are wont to escort those starting out on rather distant journeys, how much rather should we those who have set forth to that eternal home whence they return no more! I, said Job, wept over every one that was afflicted. Who is more afflicted than the dead, concerning whom Scripture says in another place: Weep over the dead! And Ecclesiastes says: The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning and the heart of fools in the house of feasting. Nothing is more excellent than this duty: to give to him who can no longer make a return to you, to deliver from the birds, to deliver from the beasts your consort in nature. Wild beasts are said to have rendered this kindness to dead bodies-shall men refuse it?
2,6. While the prophet, wearied by so holy a duty, was resting in his chamber, he was made blind through dung falling from a sparrows ' nest; but he did not complain and lament, nor did he say, Is this the reward of my labors? He grieved more at being deprived of the performance of the office of burial than of his eyes, and considered his blindness not a penalty, but a hindrance. And when his wife was contributing to his support through her earnings, he took care that nothing stolen should enter his house. His wife had received a kid as pay, but he, having regard for honesty more than for dutiful affection toward the one to whom he owed his support, did not lay aside conscientiousness. He had committed his money to the care of his kinsman, which during the whole space of his life, in spite of such great poverty, he did not demand. It was only when he saw himself worn out and overcome by old age that he suggested this to his son, not so much desiring to demand what he had entrusted as anxious lest he defraud his heir.
7. Because therefore he entrusted his money and did not put it out at usury, he observed the duty of a just man; for lending by which usury is sought is evil. But that lending is not evil concerning which it is written: Lend to thy neighbor in the time of his need. For David says also: The just showeth mercy and lendeth. That lending is different and rightly accursed, to give money for usury, which the law prohibits. But Tobias shunned this, who warned his son not to transgress the precept of the Lord, but of his substance to give alms, not to put out his money at interest, not to turn his face from any poor man. He who advises this condemns usury in lending. From this many have made a profit, and to many it has been a business to lend money. And yet the saints have forbidden it.
8. The greater is the evil of lending at interest, the more praiseworthy is he who has avoided it. Give money if you have it; let that money which is idle with you help others. Give as though you were not to receive it back, that it may be reckoned as gain if it be returned. He who does not return money returns thanks. If you are defrauded of money, you acquire righteousness, for just is the man that showeth mercy and lendeth. If money is lost, mercy is obtained; for it is written: He who showeth mercy lendeth to his neighbor.
3,9. Many through fear of loss do not lend, since they fear fraud, and this is what they are accustomed to say to those who ask of them. To every one of these it is said: Lose thy money for thy brother's sake and for thy friend, and hide it not beneath a stone to be lost. Place thy treasure in the precepts of the most high and it shall avail thee more than gold. But the ears of men have been deaf to such salutary precepts, and especially the rich have their ears closed by that brazen din of their money. While they are counting their money they do not hear the words of Scripture. As soon as someone oppressed by necessity or solicitous for the redemption of his relatives, whom the barbarian is selling as captives, begins to ask, the rich man turns his face away, does not recognize nature, does not pity the humbleness of the suppliant, does not alleviate his need, does not consider our common frailty, stands inflexible with head thrown back, is not bent by his prayers, is not moved by his tears, is not broken by his cries of despair, swears that he does not have it, nay even that he himself is seeking a money-lender to assist his own necessities. Why do you add an oath to your hardness and avarice? You are not freed by your perjury, but bound.
10. But when mention has been made of usury or of a security, then, with arrogance thrown aside, the money-lender smiles and receives with a kiss the very one whom before he said he did not know, as though recollecting a paternal friendship; he invokes the assurance of their hereditary affection, he forbids him to weep. "We will look ", says he, "at home, if we have any money; I will break up for you my ancestral silver which is artistically wrought stuff. It will be a great loss. What interest will compensate for the value of ornamental works? But for a friend I will not shrink from loss. When you make return I will have them refashioned." And thus before he gives he hastens to receive, and from him whom he says he is helping to the highest degree he demands usury. "On the first " he says, "you will give me the interest. The capital, in the meantime, if you do not have the wherewithal to pay it, I will not require." As soon as he once gives, he harasses him repeatedly, and brings it about that he is always in debt to him. He treats the man in this way. And so first he binds him by signatures and holds him to the bond of his word. The money is counted, his freedom is pledged, the wretched man is freed from a smaller debt, he is bound by a greater.
11. Such, O rich men, are your kindnesses! You give less and you exact more. Such is your humanity that you despoil even while you are helping. Even the poor man is fruitful to you unto gain. The usurer is needy: he has what he may render if you compel him, he does not have what he may spend. You are merciful men, certainly, who enslave to yourselves him whom you free from another! He pays usury who lacks food. Is there anything more terrible? He asks for medicine, you offer him poison; he begs for bread, you offer him a sword; he begs for liberty, you impose slavery; he prays for freedom, you tighten the knot of the hideous snare. 4, 12. This injustice especially does the holy David deplore, saying: I have seen iniquity and contradiction in the city and usury and deceit have not departed from its streets. And therefore when he alluded to the treachery of Judas he stated this first, either because beyond the odium of their sacrilege the crime of usury was to fall upon the conspirators in the death of our Lord, or because usury was sufficiently and fully going to avenge such a great sacrilege. Wicked were the usurers who gave money that they might destroy the author of salvation; wicked also those who give that they may destroy an innocent man. And he also who receives money, like the betrayer Judas, hangs himself also with a halter. He considered that Judas himself also should be condemned with this curse, that the usurer should search his substance, because what the proscription of tyrants or the violence of robbers is wont to do, this the wickedness alone of the usurer is accustomed to inflict. The more learned moreover think the devil himself should be compared to a usurer, who destroys the things of the soul and the patrimony of our precious intellect by a kind of lending of iniquity at interest. Thus he catches with gain, he entices with gold, thus he involves us in crime, thus he demands our life in exchange for treasure.
13. What is more unjust than you who are not even thus contented with the payment of the capital? What is more unjust than you who give money and make life and patrimony liable? You receive gold and silver as security, and still call him a debtor who has entrusted more to you than he has received from you. You declare yourselves creditors who owe more; you, I say, declare yourselves creditors who have given credit not to man, but to security. What you give is well named interest ( faenus ), it is so worthless and made of straw (faeneum ).
14. You call what is owed you your fortune (sors ), for, just as in a death-dealing urn, is shaken the wretched lot (sors ) of the debtor about to perish —a lot that must be redeemed by punishment. The pallid defendants stand awaiting the outcome of their lot ( sors ). Not thus do they tremble for whose condemnation a lot is being drawn, not so cast down and anxious do they tremble concerning whose captivity the outcome of a lot is being awaited. For in the former case the captivity of one, in this, of many, is being adjudged. And perhaps therefore it is fortune (sors ), because at stake are the patrimonies which fall under this lot (sorte ). It is a great and memorable benefit of God, and one especially foretold by the mouth of the prophet, which he conferred upon your fathers, that He redeemed them from usuries and iniquity. And rightly does he say He redeemed them from usuries, for usury brings slavery; as though he should say: Those rescued from the bond of slavery he has restored to liberty.
15. Harsh is the word, debts. Debts are called offenses, debtors also are called criminals. For they likewise, just as the latter, expose themselves to a capital charge. Crimes however have diversity in their names and acts; debts have one name, however different the amount may be, one burden, one danger. The unfortunate therefore who seeks borrowed money does not know what he is asking for; he is ignorant of what he is receiving. 5, 16. The money of the usurer cannot stay still very long in one place, being accustomed to pass through many. It cannot be kept in one bag, it seeks to be turned and counted. It requires use, that it may acquire usury. It is a kind of wave (fluctus ) of the sea, not a fruit ( fructus ). Money is never quiet; it moves on as though dashed upon a rock; thus it strikes the breast of the debtor and straightway slips back thence whence it came. It comes with a murmur, with a moan it recedes. Yet often the sea rests quiet by favor of the winds; always the wave of interest is in motion. It overwhelms the shipwrecked, casts out the naked, despoils the clothed, abandons the unburied. For you seek money (nummum ) and you incur shipwreck (naufragium ). On this side Charybdis roars around you, on that the Sirens, who as the fables tell, by the charm of their appearance and by the delight of their sweet singing, used to deprive of hope and desire of seeking their homes those drawn into the hidden shoals.
17. Straightway the sellers of perfume and of various precious wares rush up like dogs, as it were, drawn by the keen scent of wandering prey; hunters, fishers, bird -catchers, innkeepers, too, mixing water with pure wine, who clamor about the glory of your ancient race and native country and of the age of their vintage. The parasites standing about, who used previously to despise you, now suddenly salute you, take you home, rouse you to merriment, incite you to spending, saying: Come therefore and let us enjoy the good things that are present and let us speedily use the creatures as in youth. Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and with ointments, and let not the flower of the time pass by us. Let us crown ourselves with roses before they be withered: let no meadow escape our riot: Let us everywhere leave tokens of our joy: For this is our portion and this is our lot. And truly their whole fortune ( sors ) is made, but you remain bereft ( exors ) of your possessions.
18. Not such lots (sortes ) has Scripture pointed out to you, not among the midst of such lots does Holy David remind us that we should sleep, saying: If you sleep among the midst of lots; for if you had slept among the midst of those lots, that is, of the Old and the New Testament, the greed for money would never have immersed you in the whirlpool of most wicked usury, but the grace of spiritual faith would have given you silver, and would have formed you in the likeness of gold through the instruction of divine wisdom. But if we have accepted this one testimony of the divine Scripture, and have refused that luxurious banquet, certainly such a man also could have been saved if he had clung to divine wisdom.
19. However, let us go back to the banquet, not that we may taste of its dishes, but that we may show that they should be shunned by others. The table is loaded with foreign and choice foods, splendid attendants are procured, purchased at great price, and to be supported at greater expense, the drinking continues into the night, the day is filled by the banquet, it is insufficient for the carousing. The host arises full of wine, destitute of resources, he sleeps into the day, awakening, he thinks it is a dream. For just as in dreams he seems to himself suddenly to have become a rich man from a poor, he has really become a needy man from a rich. Meantime while his money flows away, his debt overflows. Time grows short, the usury increases; his treasure is exhausted, his debt is piled up. Gradually the guests withdraw, the bondsmen arrive; early the usurer knocks at the door, he complains that the days set for payment have passed. He addresses him with insults as he awakens, he arouses him as he sleeps in dreams. His nights are not peaceful, his day is not pleasant, the sun is not joyful. His golden and silken vestments are gradually taken away and are sold for less than half their value. His wife, now in deeper misery, with tears lays aside her ornaments, that she bought too dearly, to be sold too cheaply. At the public sale the slaves are put up as table servants, and, because they are illexperienced, turn away the buyer. Money is offered to the creditor. “This hardly pays the interest " he says. "You owe the capital."
20. The debtor comes back, his patrimony gone, owing the capital and with the interest undiminished. He accepts a truce, more miserable than that of war, destined to renew the battle, as it were, after a couple of days; for in war victory is uncertain, here poverty is certain. There a man is protected by his shield, here he makes the encounter unprotected. There his breastplate encloses his chest, here he is entirely enclosed in prison; there he loads his hands with weapons, he arms them with arrows, here he offers them empty of money to be bound with chains. Often one in either case is led away a captive; the former has the adverse outcome of the war to blame; the latter has no one to blame except himself. Nothing is more unbearable than that misery for which no excuse can be made. Conscience aggravates the weight of the injury suffered.
21. Now he thinks within himself, now he remembers the Scriptures, now he says. Was it not written for me: Drink water out of thy own vessels, and the streams of thy own wells? What had I to do with the well of the usurer, where even water is enclosed? Better were herbs with security than banquets provided by another's care; I ought not to have sought what belonged to another. Then I fell into debt; I ought to have sought a remedy from my own resources, there were smaller vessels at home, it would have been better to lack service than food, better to put up one's garment for sale than to sell one's liberty. What did it profit me that I felt ashamed to make a public my poverty? Behold, another has made it public; I did not wish to sell those who brought me up; behold, another confiscates them.
22. This consideration is too late. Then would it have been fitting to fear for your own, when you were receiving another's; then would it have been fitting to give aid, when the first wounds were stealing in. Better had it been at the beginning to lessen your outlay and to lighten the necessity of debt by bearing the straits of your fortune, than that, rich for the moment, you should afterward be stripped of another's and your own. 6, 23. We accuse the debtor because he has acted somewhat imprudently, but nevertheless there is nothing wickeder than the usurers, who think that another's loss is their gain, and regard as their own loss whatever is possessed by others. They lay snares for recent heirs, they hunt out rich young men through their friends, they attach themselves, pretending friendship with their father or grandfather; they wish to learn their private needs. If they find anything, they reproach the young man's timidity, they censure their modesty, because hope and trust had not been placed in them before. But if they strike upon no snares arising from anyone's necessity, they fabricate stories. They say a magnificent estate is for sale, a large house, they overstate the yield of the crops, they exaggerate the yearly income, they urge him to buy it. They act in like fashion extolling costly garments and magnificent ornaments. When he says that he has not the money, they press their own upon him saying "Use it like your own.
24. You will make many times the price from the income of the possession you have bought, you will return what you owe." They hold out the estates of others to the young man that they may despoil him of his own. They stretch nets, and as soon as he has entered the space surrounded by its enclosing folds, they force him into the toils of obligation, the snares of usury. They seek to have mortgaged to themselves his ancestral residence, his father's tomb. The day for payment is set; the court action is not mentioned, when payment can be required. When they have rendered him. sufficiently secure, suddenly they rush in and threaten him violently, and they fall upon him as he gives excuses, saying, "You have your estates, we do not have our money. We have given gold, we have a contract. For you the income of your crops comes in; for us, nothing is being added to our money. Excuses are idle, at least let the bond be renewed." 7, 25. And so when at first the young man does not think that any of his garments or even of his belongings should be sold, or asks delay for doing this, the interest is added to the principal. The latter is increased a hundredfold. Now he begins to sigh, now to recognize his misfortune. Day and night he thinks about the interest; whatever meets him, he thinks it is the usurer; whatever noise there is, he seems to hear the usurer's voice. If you have, why don't you pay? If you don't have, why add misfortune to misfortune and seek a remedy from your wound? Why do you daily endure the siege of the usurer, fear his assault? There is an old proverb: When the usurer and the debtor meet one another the Lord has oversight over both. The one like a dog is seeking his prey, the other like the exposed quarry turns aside. The one like a lion is seeking whom he may devour, the other like the young ox dreads the onslaught of the robber; the one like a bird of prey seeks to attack the swan with his talons, the other like a goose or a waterfowl prefers either to cast himself down from the cliffs or plunge into the depths rather than to withstand that bird that preys upon the human body. Why do you flee daily? Although the usurer may not overtake you, want, a good runner, as it were, overtakes you. The Lord therefore sees both the usurer and the debtor, he looks upon them as they meet, a witness of the wickedness of the one, the wrong of the other; He condenmns the avarice of the former, the folly of the latter. The former numbers every step of the debtor, he lays a snare for his turnings; the latter forthwith hides his head behind the pillars; for the debtor has no dignity. Both very often repeat the calculation of the interest on their fingers. Their care is like, but their feelings unlike. The one rejoices in the increase of the interest, the other is afflicted by the piling up of the debt. The one counts his gains, the other his miseries.
26. Why do you flee a man whom you could even not fear? Why do you flee, or whither will you flee? If anyone knocks at night, you think it is the usurer; straightway you are under the bed. If you notice someone entering suddenly, you leap out the door. A dog barks and your heart palpitates, perspiration breaks *out, your panting shakes you, you seek how you may lie to put the usurer off, and when you have been granted a deferment, you rejoice. The usurer pretends he is worried about your ruin, but he gladly grants it; like the hunter who has netted a wild beast, he is sure of his prey. You kiss his head, you embrace his knees, and, like a stag struck by a poisoned arrow, after going a little further you fall, overcome at length by the poison; or you are like a fish which has been caught on the hook, and wherever he flees, carries the wounding hook with him. And truly such a fish devours death in the bait, he swallows the fish -hook while he is seeking food, but yet he does not see the hook which the lure has concealed: you see the hook and yet swallow it. Your hook is the interest of the creditor. You devour the hook and the worm always gnaws you. It is the bait itself which deceives. And so to you also the food of interest is no advantage and the hook is a wound. Are you unaware that, once caught in the noose, the animal binds itself the tighter in the toils if it would escape, and that, being within the net, in attempting to escape it pulls the net over itself the more? You flee in the streets since you cannot be safe within walls. The usurer, when he wishes, finds you. Finally, when you have reached the end of your time, like a wolf in the night he rushes on you, he does not allow you to sleep, on the long -awaited day he drags you into public or compels you to subscribe to deeds of sale. That you may conceal your loss of decency, straightway you sign, intending to sell your ancestral tomb. In order to be sure that some respect for a father's property may be provided, barren ground, it is said, is being bought. It is boasted that infertile land has been sold, that the seller has been burdened with expenses, and the difficulties of the present are assigned to the expenses of the past. Soon the muchvaunted lands also are sold, and no longer are documents brought in, but chains.
27. Nevertheless a truce is given the debtor while he is still seeking sureties, not that he may find the prize of freedom, but that he may join to himself a sharer in his slavery, who may ally himself to one in misery. But what can the accession of another's misfortune help? Now even his friends avoid him, his guests do not recognize him, he himself too avoids the sight of all, and as a boxer avoids the various blows of his opponents, so he shuns meeting with honorable men, and when he stumbles upon anyone, anxiously he goes from him with watchful eye. He returns ready for chains, he returns longing for death, thinking that it would bring him respite if he should die. He returns sadly, condemning himself because he did not shun the money of another and bound himself with the metal of the usurer.
28. O how many men have the goods of others made wretched! What has thou to do to drink the waters of Geon? he says. Why is it, I say, that you should drink the cup of the usurer? "Many", he says, " having borrowed for the time, have both taken council for their needs and have returned the money." And how many have strangled themselves because of the interest? You think of the former, you do not count the latter. You remember that some escaped, you do not remember the ones who have perished. You enter into account the money returned, you do not compute the nooses sought, which many, too self -respecting to face disgrace, too weak to face injustice, in seeking their own destruction have preferred to the shame of so odious an indictment, fearing dishonor in life more than the torment of death. 8, 29. I have seen a pitiful sight, children led forth to sale for their father's debt and held as the heirs of his misfortune who would not be sharers in his possessions, and the creditor not blushing at so enormous an outrage. He insists, he He insists, he urges, he puts them up for sale. "Since they were fed by money" he says, " let them recognize their servitude as a return for their support, let them submit to sale in return for expense. Let the spear be fixed concerning the price of each; not unmeetly is the spear fixed when capital (caput ) is sought, not unmeetly does one resort to auction when the principal (sors ) is demanded. This is the inhumanity of the usurer, this is the folly of the debtor, that from the children to whom he does not leave money, he takes away liberty, that he leaves them a written obligation instead of a will, a bond of indebtedness instead of the advantage of an inheritance. What is the meaning of a father writing a curse against children when there is no offense of impious sin? Can there be any harsher curse or severer slavery? And often after his death the dead man has this advantage, that he does not see the miseries of his children.
30. Even a father often sells his children by authority of his parenthood, but not with the consent of piety, and he drags the unfortunates to the auction with a shamefaced countenance, saying " Pay, my children, the expense of my gluttony, pay the cost of your father's table, disgorge what you have not devoured, return what you have not received, better through this, that by your sale -price you redeem your father, by your slavery you buy your father's freedom."
31. Granted that someone comes who is able to help. Who could fill up such a Charybdis, who would acknowledge the accounts of a usurer, who would satisfy his greed, what prices would he not heap up when he should see a redeemer? For he does not feed more on his own gain than on another's loss. True indeed, true is the divine pronouncement, seeing it is of God, who when he had been angered by the impiety of the people of the Jews because they were going after strange gods, said: To what usurer have I sold you? For he is sold who has been bound to the usurer, not for one price, but for a daily one; he is sold not at a fixed price, but with constant increase. There is a new increase of interest every month, a new sale with daily bidding. He who offers more always prolongs the business; he is declared for sale, he is never adjudged as sold. Great then is the force of the divine pronouncement. The Lord did not consider it enough to say To whom have I sold you? He added to what usurer? Angered, he could find nothing more severe by which he could punish the faithless. Abandoned, he demands why they have thus fled from the author of salvation, just as a master would have sold them to some usurer as a punishment befitting one who deserts his master. Slaves have something more to fear than the punishments of prison and chains, free men something to dread from their neglect of their freedom.
32. At the same time note this, that usury has been judged the basis of transgression, because he easily departs from the Lord who can obligate himself to the usurer. For interest is the root of deceit, the cause of faithlessness. "I have not sold you " He says, but you are sold for your iniquities." Therefore he who binds himself to the usurer sells himself, and what is worse, sells himself not for money but for sin. 9, 33. Who is that usurer of sin, if not the devil, by borrowing sin from whom, Eve indebted the whole human race with the usury of a guilty inheritance? Therefore like a wicked usurer he held the bond which afterward the Lord blotted out with His blood. For what had been written in characters of death had to be destroyed by death. Accordingly the devil is a usurer. Therefore he showed his riches to the Savior saying: All these will I give thee if falling down thou wilt adore me. But in truth the Lord, the payer of the debt, owed nothing to him, Who could say: The prince of this world cometh and hath found nothing of his in He owed nothing but He paid for all, just as He Himself me. testifies, saying: Then did I pay that which I took not away.
34. How different is the wickedness of the prince of this world! The usurer of money has a mortgage on one's head, he holds one's signature, he reckons his capital, he exacts his hundredth. O what a bitter word from a sweet! The Lord freed the hundredth sheep -that was the hundredth of salvation, this, of death —and the good earth returns fruit a hundred - fold. Woe to those who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! What is bitterer than usury, what sweeter than grace? Ought they not by that very word by which they designate it hundredth, to recall to memory the Redeemer, who came to save the hundredth sheep, not to destroy it?
35. Who is a harsher oppressor? And this is a bitter word. Therefore the Lord says: My people, your oppressors strip you; and in the Gospel you have: When thou goest with thy adversary to the prince, endeavor to be delivered from him: Lest perhaps he draw thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the exacter, and the exacter cast thee into prison. Know then who that exacter is who exacts the last farthing and still calls himself a creditor, and even with this name commits fraud, as one who smears a cup of poison with honey, that death may be hidden beneath a pleasant fragrance and the sweetened rim of the cup may conceal the onslaught of deceit. The creditor is depicted as a trustworthy person (fidelis ) but, as it were, not trusting ( incredulus ) to whom a trustworthy person binds himself by a pledge. 10, 36. How often have I seen the dead held as a pledge by usurers and denied burial while the interest is being demanded! To them I have gladly given assent that they keep their debtor, so that, on his being chosen, the bondsman should escape. For these are the laws of usury. And so I have said, "Hold your malefactor, and in order that he cannot slip away from you, take him home, shut him in your chamber, you harder than hangmen, since the man whom you hold the prison does not receive, and the exacter frees. The prison sends forth after death those guilty of wrong -doing; you confine them; the dead person is freed from the severity of the laws, you hold him. Surely this man is counted to have fulfilled his obligation ( sortem ), nevertheless I do not grudge that you keep your pledge. There is no difference between interment and interest ( funus, faenus ), there is no distinction between death and debt (mors, sors ). Usurious interest resounds, resounds the funeral wail. Now surely he whom you are summoning has been deprived of his rights; yet you bind him with stronger bonds, lest he may not feel your fetters. For your debtor is stiff and unbending and a man who no longer can blush. There is one thing forsooth that you do not have to fear he cannot ask for food."
37. I therefore commanded the body to be lifted and the order of the funeral rites to be conducted at the home of the usurer. But such sounds were being made also by the bellowing of those confined within, you would believe that there too was a funeral, you would think that there the dead were being mourned. Nor was my belief wrong except that it turned out that several were on the point of dying there. Conquered by religious custom, this usurer -for in other places even these pledges are said to be accepted -asked that the remains be taken to the place of burial. Then only did I see human usurers. I was vexed, yet I was mindful to keep watch on their humanity, lest afterward they should complain that they had been deceived, until, having bent their shoulders to the bier they themselves conducted the dead man to his sepulchre, bewailing with bitterer sorrow the funeral of their money. 11, 38. Hear another instance of no less bitterness. These men watch the booths of the gamblers and esteem as their own advantage the distress of the loser. They pledge for each one. At first chance gives various issues, victory is often transferred to different ones, and its gains and losses change alternately. All lose and win: the usurer alone acquires. Others have the empty name that they have won: with the usurer alone is the gain, not yearly, but every instant. They alone make a profit in the loss of everyone, theirs alone is the interest given by victory. You may see the rest now needy, now rich, then stripped, changing their condition with every throw. For their life is staked like a die, their fortune rolls on the playing table, a game is made of danger, and danger results from a game. So many stakes, so many notices of public sale. There is the shouting of those who applaud, the weeping of those who are ruined, the groaning of those who bewail themselves. Among them sits the creditor like a tyrant, condemning everyone to capital punishment (sorte capitali ). He plants his spears, he begins the fateful auction of the spoils of each one. Some he condemns to public sale, others, to slavery; not so many have been put to death under tyrants. I would then more rightly call this the hazard of life than of money. In a moment that is proposed which may hold forever. Drunkenness judges and no one appeals. A dice -game also has its own rules which the laws of the forum may not render void. If it can be believed, he is branded with disgrace who thinks he should resist, and the censure of these infamous men brands a deeper opprobrium upon him than the sentence of a court, since those who are condemned before a judge are heroes to the former, those who are condemned by them are also blameworthy before a judge. Moses established a famous council of elders; they however were accustomed to judge the easier cases; a major decision, that is concerning the more important matters, they used to reserve for Moses to judge. Here it is said: " The council of gamesters ( aleonum ) has judged. " And their power is more feared than that of lions ( leonum ). Among these wild animals you live, O usurer, and move; you snatch your food from these beasts, you are considered more hideous than they; more cruel than they, you are more feared.
39. They say the people of the Huns make war on all nations; yet they are in thrall to usurers, and although they live without laws, they obey the laws of gambling alone, play in battle array, carry their dice and their arms at the same time, and more often succumb to their own casts ( iactibus ) than by those of their enemy, are made captives in their own victory, and endure spoliation by their own people which they can not endure from the enemy. Therefore they never lay aside their desire for war, because a man conquered in the game of dice, since he has lost the amount of his whole booty, seeks reserves for gambling in the peril of fighting. Frequently moreover he is carried away by such enthusiasm that when, being vanquished, he has surrendered the only things which they esteem of great worth, his arms, he forfeits his own life on one throw of the dice to the control of the victor or the usurer. Finally, it is ascertained that a certain one of them, known even to the Roman emperor, in good faith paid the price of slavery which, on being vanquished by such a cast, he had brought upon himself, by the punishment of the prescribed death. The usurer therefore oppresses the necks even of the Huns, and drives them upon the sword; he oppresses the barbarians by the terror of his cruelty. 12, 40. For what is more vile than the man who puts out money at interest today and requires it tomorrow. Such a man as this is hateful, Scripture says. For bland is the giving, but cruel the exaction. Certainly the kindness itself of the giving causes the cruelty of the exaction. He has put out his money, he requires securities, and hides them in his strongbox. One sum is given by the usurers, and how many are exacted from the debtors! How many terms have they made for themselves! Money is given, it is called a loan; it is termed money at interest, it is designated capital; it is written down as debt; this huge monster of many heads (capitum ) causes frequent exactions; the usurer names the bond, he speaks of the signature, he demands securities, he talks of a pledge, he calls for sureties; he claims the legal obligation, he boasts of the interest, he praises the hundredths.
41. The usurer's money is a kind of viper which brings forth so many evils! The viper, however, carrying vitals fruitful for anguish, is burst by her young, and by a mother's death shows the offspring not to be inferior in nature to the mother. Therefore as soon as they begin to be serpents they rend her with their bites. There where poison is born it is first tried. But the money of the usurer contains all its own ills; it brings forth, nourishes, and itself grows more in its own offspring, more numerous through its melancholy progeny, not less twisting than a serpent, and gathering itself completely into a circle, that it may protect its head (caput), it scourges with the rest of its body. This alone it exposes to wounds; with its huge coils it binds those whom it has caught, with its head alone it kills them. If the head is safe, even if the rest of it has been destroyed, it revives.
42. Among serpents also the times for mating and for giving birth are vari- ous; money at interest, from the day on which the contract has been entered into, creeps along with increasing usury. It knows nothing of giving birth because it itself rather transfers the pains to others. There were pains as of a woman in labor. Whence also the Greeks have called interest offspring ( tóxovę ), because it seems to arouse the pains of child -birth in the mind of the debtor. The first of the month arrives, the capital brings forth its hundredth; each month comes, interest is born, evil offspring of evil parents. This is the generation of vipers. The hundredth has developed; it is demanded, it is not paid; it is applied to the principal. The curse of the prophet is brought to pass: Guile within guile; usury is a worse offspring of a wicked seed. And therefore it begins to be no longer interest, but principal, that is to say, not a hundredth of interest, but interest on a hundredth. 13, 43. I think too, usury has received its name from use, because, as garments are rent by use, so is a patrimony by usury. The first letter of the signature on the contract sounds forth mournfully; it is bringing forth; there is a cry of pain. What good can there be in that which begins with pain and with obligation? Hares are said to beget and rear at the same time, and immediately to bring forth. For these inscribers also of usury, interest is generated and supergenerated. It is nourished and born, and being born, immediately brings forth. The roots of trees too are first planted, that they may take root; when they have taken root, then they begin to grow, afterward to produce. But truly money at usury, scarcely planted, immediately produces. Seeds burst in their season, animals bring forth in their season, for there is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, and below: A time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away, as Ecclesiastes says. Money at interest is sown today, tomorrow it bears fruit; it always brings forth and never perishes; it is always being planted; only with difficulty is it plucked up. The usurer wishes always to get, never to keep, his money; always to cast out, never to heal, always to kill.
44. And because Ecclesiastes, a book of Solomon, is a profitable teacher in all things, let us apply ourselves to it for a little. The eye will not be satisfied with seeing, says he, neither will the ear be filled with hearing. Neither is the usurer filled with getting nor is his passion satiated by the daily hearing of his money being counted. And again: All that has been is the same as that which shall be. Money is always increasing, greed knows no rest, usury no holidays. All rivers, he says, run into the sea, and the sea does not overflow. The usurer is that sea; he absorbs everyone's patrimony like a flood and himself cannot be filled. Many however make use of the sea for gain, no one employs the usurer except for loss; the former is a benefit to many, the latter the shipwreck of all.
45. There are many living creatures which quickly start to beget, but they also quickly cease to beget. Capital quickly begets and never ceases; nay when it has received the beginning of increase it extends its growth ad infinitum. Everything then which grows, when it has reached its natural shape and proportion and size, ceases to be subject to increment; but the money of the usurers is always increased by time and, going beyond the shape of its mother capital, it keeps no bounds. And many kinds of living things, when they have commenced to beget those that are sprung from them, with their strength worn out, as it were, lose the function of begetting; capital, however, when by the increasing hundredths of interest it has doubled, both rejuvenates its old age and multiplies its ordinary offspring by addition of itself. 14, 46. Not new nor negligible is this evil, which is restrained by the precept of the Old and Divine Law. The people who had despoiled Egypt, who had crossed the sea on foot, is warned to beware shipwrecks from the money of usury. And although it has prescribed once or with many times repeated admonition concerning other sins, most frequently has it referred to usury. You have in Exodus: But ifthou lend money to a ward, to an orphan, to a poor man among you, thou shalt not strangle him nor oppress him with usury. It shows what strangling is, that is, oppressing with usury, for, what is even worse, the noose of the creditor strangles the soul. With this word it has expressed the violence of the robber and the suffering of a horrible death. If thou take of thy neighbor a garment in pledge, thou shalt give it him again before sunset. For that same is the only thing wherewith he is covered, this is the clothing of his dishonor, in what shall he sleep? But if likewise he cry to me I will hear him. Have you heard usurers, what the Law says, concerning which our Lord said: Iam come not to destroy the law but to fulfill it? What the Lord did not destroy, do you destroy? "To seek usury ", he said, "is to strangle ". This has also been said later by certain of their wise men outside the fold. "What is it to take interest? It is to kill a man", he says. But surely Cato was not before Moses who received the law. He was much later.
47. If thou take of thy neighbor a garment in pledge thou shalt give it to him again before sunset, lest the shame of a naked man should be revealed. But you despoil and strip and do not return. See to it lest the sun go down upon your greed, and lest the sun of justice should go down for you because you do not hold to justice, or the sun of iniquity sink upon your wickedness. Day also ends for a man though against his wish; night falls as upon Judas, who when the devil had gone into his heart arose for the betrayal, and it became night; for the sun of justice had set for him, and there rested upon him one who had entered into his heart. He made darkness about him that he might not see the author of light. There the wretch perished at that banquet through which others are saved. Give back therefore his garment to the debtor, in which he may sleep and be at rest. If you will not return it I will hear him, he says, because I am merciful. If you do not hear him, I shall hear him, I shall pity him, I shall not despise the prayer of the needy.
48. In Deuteronomy also it is written: Thou shalt not require from thy brother usury for money and usury for food and usury for any thing, whatever thou hast lent to thy brother. If thou entrust it to the stranger thou shalt require usury of him. But from trust it to the stranger thou shalt require usury of him, but from thy brother thou shalt not require it. You see how great weight there is in the words; do not, it says, require usury from thy brother. That is, do you require usury from him with whom you ought to have all things in common? Your brother is your sharer in nature and your co -heir in grace. Do not ask more from him, from whom it is harsh to require what you have given unless he has whence he may pay it.
49. And because many, avoiding the precepts of the Law, when they have given money to merchants, do not require usury in money, but through their wares receive as it were the benefits of usury, let them likewise hear what the Law says: thou shalt receive, it says, neither usury for food nor for anything, whatever thou hast lent to thy brother. For that is fraud and circumvention of the Law, not its observance. And do you think you are acting piously because you receive as it were a loan from the merchant? Thereby he commits fraud in the price of his goods from which he pays usury to you. You are the cause of this fraud, you are a partner; whatever he gets by fraud is to your profit. Food too is usury and clothing is usury, and whatever is added to capital is usury. Whatever name you wish to put upon it, it is usury. If it is lawful, why do you throw a cloak over it? If unlawful, why do you seek gain?
50. What is worse, this is the vice of many, and especially of the rich who, under this head, fill their larders. If someone thinks a banquet should be celebrated, he sends to the merchant to bring him a little cask of absintthe wine free, he notifies the innkeeper that he needs Picenian or Tyrian wine, the butcher, that he should procure a sow's matrix for him, another, that he should furnish fruit. And so they consider kindness things which are manifestly to another's peril. You drink, and another streams with tears; you feast, and strangle others through your food; you are entertained with music, and another laments with sad wailing; you taste fruits, and another devours a thorn. Do they collect grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? A thorn is usury, a thorn is the hundredth, a thistle is in- terest, it stings badly. How then can you have fruit of thorns? If this fruit is not derived from thorns, will what is everlasting be derived from them? You are enriched by miseries, you seek gain from tears, you feed on another's hunger, you coin silver from the spoils of plundered men, and do you consider yourself rich, you who ask alms from the poor? But hear what our Savior says: Woe to you that are rich, you have your consolation! 15, 51. But perhaps you may say that it is wrotten to the stranger thou shalt lend, and do not consider what the Gospel says, which is fuller. But meanwhile let us set this aside. Consider the words of the Law itself: To thy brother, it says, thou shalt not lend at usury; thou shalt exact of the stranger. Who then was the stranger except Amalech, except the Amorite, except the enemy? "There," it says, "demand usury." Upon him whom you rightly desire to harm, against whom weapons are lawfully carried, upon him usury is legally imposed. On him whom you cannot easily conquer in war, you can quickly take vengeance with the hundredth. From him exact usuary whom it would not be a crime to kill. He fights without a weapon who demands usury; without a sword he revenges himself upon an enemy, who is an interest collector from his foe. Therefore where there is the right of war, there also is the right of usury. For every people which, first, is in the faith, then under Roman law, is your brother: I will declare thy name to my brethren, in the midst of the church will I praise thee.
52. Finally also in Leviticus the Law prescribes that usury must not be demanded from a brother. For thus you have: and thy brother shall live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury nor exact of him any increase of fruits. This decision of God has excluded in general all increase of capital. Wherefore also David esteemed both blessed and worthy of a heavenly habitation the one who did not give money to usury. If therefore he who did not give it is blessed, without doubt accursed is he who has given to usury. Why then do you choose a curse rather than a blessing? You can be blessed, if you wish, you can be just. For he is a just man, according to Ezechiel, who shall restore the pledge to the debtor, and shall not give his money upon usury, and shall not take an increase, and shall withdraw his hand from iniquity. He shall live, he says, saith the Lord. Moreover, he who hath not restored the pledge, and hath lifted up his eyes to idols, hath committed abomination. Since he hath given upon usury and hath taken increase, he shall not live. He hath done all these detestable things, he shall die, his blood shall be upon him. See in what manner he has connected the usurer with the idolater, as though he would make the crime equal. Choose therefore what is sweet.
53. Why always gloomy, why always exceedingly bitter, why full of care? Let mercy at last proceed from you, let truth proceed. Let deceit be laid aside, let fraud be hateful. You have taught perjury. It is called a moneylender's oath when perjury is attempted. You forswear yourself often when money is returned, saying that the bond is not at hand; you forswear yourself afterward saying that you have not received the money. Do not then be always wretched, always greedy, always sad. There are lions and they change their savageness. Out of the eater, he said, came forth meat, and out of the strong and the bitter went forth sweetness. The Greek has "and bitter "; so we have found. Yet "out of the strong " means this, that a lion is strong because of its savagery, and he who is savage is bitter. And from you, who devour money and avarice, let mercy go forth-for this is the meat of the needy -and from the bitter let sweetness go forth, so that you free him who has not whence he may pay. Why do you draw your sins after you as with a long rope and as with the yoke strap of the heifer? And this certainly happens when you protract your interest. You hold a poor man as your debtor. Let there be at least some favor inthis case where there is no hope of advantage. And I say this in accordance with your greed. 16, 54. But the Lord in the Gospels thinks we should lend rather to those from whom a return is not to be expected. For He speaks thus: and if you lend to them from whom you hope to receive, what thanks are to you? For sinners lend to sinners for to receive. But love ye your enemies, do good, and lend hoping for nothing, and your reward shall be great in Heaven, and you shall be the sons of the highest: for he is kind to the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye merciful as your Father is also merciful. You notice what name the usurer has received from the Lord, what name also he who has been bound by your usury. Sinners, He says, lend to sinners for to receive. Both are sinners, both the usurer and the debtor. Do you, therefore, He says, love your enemies. You should not discuss what your enemies may deserve, but what you ought to do. Lend to those from whom you do not hope that you will receive what has been given. Here is no loss, but a gain. You give very little, you will receive much: You give on earth and you will be paid in Heaven; you lose your interest, you will have a great reward; you stop being usurers, you will be sons of the Highest, you will be the merciful who prove yourselves to be heirs of the Eternal Father.
55. But the words usurers and usury delight you. That also I do not begrudge. I will teach you how you can be good usurers, how you may seek usury. Solomon says: He lendeth to the Lord that hath mercy on the poor, and according to his gift He will repay him. Behold good interest is made from bad, behold a blameless usurer, behold praiseworthy usury! Do not then consider me any longer as grudging you your profits. Do you think that I am taking away from you man, your debtor? I offer God, I substitute Christ, I point out Him who cannot deceive you. Lend your money therefore to the Lord in the hand of the poor man. He is bound and held, He writes down whatever the needy man has received— the Gospel is His bond -He promises for all the poor, He gives His pledge. Why do you hesitate to give? If any rich man of this world presents himself to you and promises with his own pledge for some debtor, immediately you count out the money. The Lord of Heaven and the Creator of this world is as a poor man for you, and do you still deliberate? What richer surety do you seek?
56. But you claim that He was made poor, although He was rich. You have seen then that His pledge is rich, that His pledge is sufficient. He was made poor when He paid for us; and still this poverty itself does not deceive, for it made us rich, whom you thought poor. For the apostle says: He became poor although He was rich, that through His poverty you might be rich. Good is the poverty which bestows riches. Do not then yourselves fear poverty, in order that you may be rich. Give your idle money and you will receive fruitful grace, and you will assist the necessities of the poor and the care of keeping guard will be lessened for you; what the poor man has received will not perish, and what you have given to the needy will be preserved for you without a guard. But if you seek the increase of usury, in the law is blessing, in the Gospel a heavenly reward. What is sweeter than a blessing, what is greater than Heaven? If usury of food is desired, that too is ready, as we read: For he who pitieth the poor is himself fed. 17, 57. Return therefore the pledges which you hold, since you have found a suitable surety. But still they murmur, maintaining that it is permitted to hold pledges, and they defend themselves by the Law, for they say: It is written in Deuteronomy: If anything is owed to thee by thy neighbor, thou shalt not go to his house to take away a pledge, but thou shalt stand without and the man who owes thee shall bring out his pledge to thee. But if that man be poor thou shalt not sleep in his pledge but thou shalt restore his pledge to him at the going down of the sun, and he shall sleep in his own raiment and bless thee and there shall be mercy for thee before the Lord thy God. And in another place, they say, it is written: Thou shalt not take the nether nor the upper millstone to pledge, for he pledges his life. And in another place: Thou shalt not receive the widow's raiment for a pledge. Whence they argue that certain pledges are forbidden -not all-that is, that of the poor man and the widow, the nether and also the upper mill- stone it is forbidden to take as pledge.
58. But since the Lord Himself, through Ezechiel the prophet, proclaims that he is just who has returned a pledge, unjust who has kept it, assuredly he urges that not some special one, but in general every pledge should be returned, since Job says: The writing which I held against anyone, received under oath, I read, putting on my crown, and if I did not tear it up I returned it receiving nothing from the debtor. Since the Lord teaches that nothing ought to be hoped from those to whom we have lent, which we should receive, how, according to law, do they think a pledge should be retained? 18, 59. And lest they break out afresh in the same way and say that they are even urged to usury by the pronouncement of the Law, because it is written: Thou shalt lend to many nations and shalt not borrow, it is seasonable to discuss more fully and expressly and to teach what ought to be loaned at usury and to whom the statutes of the law command it; for the question of usury precedes the question of pledge. The sinner shall borrow, it says, and not pay, but the just showeth mercy and giveth. You hear, debtor, what you ought to avoid; you hear, creditor, what you ought to imitate. And below: I have been young and am old and I have not seen the just forsaken nor his seed seeking bread. He sheweth mercy and lendeth the day long. Whence has this man what he may lend the day long? Is then the just man rich, and the richer each one may be, the more just? He, who has more from which he may lend, will he be more just? But hardly does a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven.