Contra usurarios

Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, Against Those Who Lend at Interest. The life of virtuous men who choose to live according to reason is regulated by good laws and ordinances, in which the intention of the lawgiver is seen to be directed generally toward two aims: one consisting in the prohibition of forbidden things, the other in urging the performance of good deeds. For it is not possible for a well-ordered and temperate life to be achieved unless one, fleeing evil as much as he is able, pursues virtue as a son pursues his mother. Having gathered together today, then, in order to hear the commandments of God, we have been listening to the prophet slaying the wicked offspring of loans, the interests, and removing from life the use of coinage for profit. Let us receive the injunction with ready obedience, so that we may not become that rock upon which the seed fell and remained dry and barren, nor may it be said to us what was once said to the intractable Israel: "You will hear with your ears and not understand, and you will see with your eyes and not perceive." And I beg those who will hear me not to condemn me for rashness or folly, if I, having yoked a chariot of asses or oxen to the victorious horses, have entered the same contest as a man who is select and renowned for philosophy, trained in the discipline of all discourses, who has been successful in this subject and has left to life the treatise against usurers as a possession.

For small things always appear alongside great ones, and the moon shines when the sun is visible, and when a ship laden with ten thousand measures is driven by the force of the winds, a small skiff follows, crossing the same deep; and again, when men contend according to athletic laws, boys also train in the same manner. So let this request for pardon stand. But you, to whom the speech is addressed, whoever you may be, hate the huckster's way; being human, love humans, not silver. Stop your sin at this point. Say to your once-beloved interests the voice of John the Baptist: "Offspring of vipers, depart from me." You are the ruin of those who have and receive you; you delight for a little while, but later your venom becomes a bitter poison to the soul; you block the path of life, you close the gates of the kingdom; having briefly pleased the eye and filled the ear with sound, you become the cause of eternal grief. Having said this, renounce excess and interest, and commit yourself to love of the poor. And do not turn away the one who wishes to borrow. Because of poverty he beseeches you and sits at your doors; in need he flees to your wealth, so that you may become his helper in his need. But you do the opposite: you become an enemy instead of an ally; for you do not assist him so that he might be freed from the pressing necessity and repay you the loan, but you sow evils for the one in distress, stripping the naked, wounding the wounded, heaping cares upon cares and griefs upon grief.

For the one who accepts interest-bearing gold receives a pledge of poverty, introducing destruction into the household under the guise of benefaction. Just as, when someone is feverish, burning with heat, and seized by violent thirst, and asks for a drink out of necessity, one who gives him wine, ostensibly out of kindness, delights the one drawing the cup for a short time, but after a little while produces a violent and tenfold fever in the sufferer, so the one who provides a poor man with gold that bears offspring does not end the need but intensifies the calamity. Do not, therefore, live a misanthropic life under the pretense of philanthropy, nor become a murderous physician, having the pretense of saving through wealth, as that one does through his art, but using your choice for the destruction of the one who has entrusted himself to you. The life of the usurer is idle and greedy; he knows no labor of agriculture, no ingenuity of commerce, but sits in one place, nurturing beasts at his hearth. He wants everything to grow unsown and unplowed. His plow is the pen, his field the paper, his seed the ink, his rain the time that secretly increases the fruit of his money for him; his sickle is the demand for payment. His house is the threshing floor on which he grinds down the possessions of the oppressed; he eyes everyone's private goods. He prays for necessities and calamities for people, so that they may come to him under compulsion. He hates those who are self-sufficient and considers those who have not borrowed as enemies. He haunts the courts to find the one pressed by debt collectors, and follows the tax collectors as vultures follow battle lines and wars.

He carries his purse about and shows the bait of the hunt to those who are choking, so that, gaping around him because of their need, they may swallow down the hook of the interest along with it. Daily he counts his profit and is not filled with desire. He is vexed at the gold stored up in his house, because it lies idle and unproductive. He imitates the farmers who sow immediately from the heaps of the harvest: he has taken, he has given. He does not let the wretched gold rest, but transfers it from hand to hand. You see, then, the rich man, the man of much gold, often not having even a single coin in his house, but his hopes in papers, his substance in agreements, possessing nothing and holding everything, having used his life contrary to the apostolic letter, giving everything to those who ask, not out of a philanthropic disposition, but out of a money-loving character. For he chooses temporary poverty, so that the gold, like a toiling slave, may return with its wages. You see how hope for the future empties the house and makes the man of much gold temporarily landless.

What is the cause of this? The writing in the papyrus, the bond of the one who is hard pressed: "I will give with the interest, I will pay with the profit." Then, I ask, the debtor, being even without means, is trusted because of the contract, while God, being rich and promising, is not heard. "Give, and I will give back," he cries, having written in the Gospels, in a public handbill of the world. What four evangelists wrote instead of one notary, of which all Christians from the time of salvation are witnesses. You have paradise as a pledge, a trustworthy security. And if you seek also here: the whole world is the possession of the grateful debtor. Examine wisely the wealth of the one seeking the interest, and you will find the riches: every gold-bearing land is the possession of your debtor, every vein of silver and copper and the rest of the materials is a part of his dominion. Look at the great heaven, observe the boundless sea, survey the breadth of the earth, count the animals nourished upon it: all are slaves and possessions of him whom you despise as poor. Be sensible, O man; do not insult God nor consider him more dishonorable than the moneychangers, whom you trust without question when they give surety. Give to a guarantor who does not die, trust a bond that is not stolen nor torn. Do not ask for the interest, but give the benefit unadulterated, and you will see God repaying the favor with increase. And if my word sounds strange to your ear as paradoxical, I have ready the testimony that to those who spend piously and do good, God repays the reward many times over.

For when Peter asks and says, "Behold, we have left everything and followed you; what then will be for us?" "Truly 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 will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life." Do you see the generosity? Do you see the goodness? The utterly shameless moneylender labors to double the principal, but God voluntarily gives a hundredfold to the one who does not oppress his brother. Be persuaded, then, by God who advises you, and you will receive interest without sin. Why do you, with sin, waste yourself with anxieties, counting the days, reckoning the months, contemplating the principal, dreaming of the additions, fearing the deadline, lest it prove fruitless like a harvest struck by hail? The moneylender busies himself with the debtor's actions, his departures, his movements, his changes, his trades. And if some gloomy rumor arrives, that so-and-so fell among robbers or that from some circumstance his prosperity was turned to poverty, he sits with his hands clasped, groans continuously, weeps much, unrolls the bond, laments over the letters, bringing forth the contract as if it were the garment of a dead son; from that he stirs up the passion more hotly. And if the loan is a maritime one, he sits by the shores, worries about the movements of the winds, constantly inquires of those arriving, whether a shipwreck has been heard of anywhere, whether those sailing have been in danger anywhere.

thickens the soul, when it sees the sea raging, it sees dreams, it fills the soul with phantasms from the remnants of the day's care. To such a one it must be said: Cease, man, from perilous anxiety, rest from consuming hope, do not, by seeking interest, destroy the principal for yourself. You seek revenues and additions of wealth from a poor man, acting like someone who would wish to take heaps of grain from a land dried up by the most scorching drought, or a multitude of grapes from a vine after a hailstorm, or the birth of children from a barren womb, or the nourishment of milk from women who have not borne children. No one attempts things contrary to nature and impossible, since besides accomplishing nothing, they incur ridicule. Only God is all-powerful, who finds resources from the impossible and creates things beyond hope and expectation, now commanding a rock to pour forth a spring, again raining down from heaven an unfamiliar and strange bread, and again sweetening the bitter waters of Marah by the touch of a piece of wood, and making the womb of the barren Elizabeth fruitful, and giving Samuel to Hannah and the firstborn in virginity to Mary. These are works of the all-powerful hand alone. But you, do not seek interest from copper and gold, the barren materials, nor force poverty to do the works of the rich, nor to give increase from one who begs for the principal. Or do you not know that the need for a loan is a respectable request for mercy? Therefore the law, the introductory text of piety, everywhere forbids interest: "If you lend money to your brother, you shall not oppress him.

and grace, overflowing from the fountain of goodness, legislates remission of debts, in one place dealing kindly and saying: Even if you lend, do so from what you expect to receive back; and elsewhere in a parable harshly punishing the cruel servant who was not moved nor remitted a paltry debt of one hundred denarii to a fellow servant who prostrated before him, while he himself received remission of ten thousand talents. Our savior and teacher of piety, introducing a simple rule and pattern of prayer to his disciples, included this one thing in the words of supplication as most necessary and sufficient to propitiate God: And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. How then will you pray, the usurer? With what conscience will you seek a good request from God, you who take everything and have not learned to give? Or do you not know that your prayer is a reminder of misanthropy? What have you forgiven, and you ask for forgiveness? Whom have you pitied, and you call upon the merciful one? And if you ever give alms, from where do you give? Is it not from your bitter and misanthropic tax-collecting? Is it not from others' misfortunes, full of tears and groans? If the poor man knew from where you extend alms, he would not accept it, as if about to taste brotherly flesh and blood of his own kin, but would say to you a word.

full of wise frankness: Do not nourish me, man, from the tears of brothers, do not give bread to the poor that comes from the groans of the destitute. Settle with your fellow, what you unjustly exacted, and I will acknowledge the favor. What benefit is it to you to make many poor and comfort one? If there were not a multitude of usurers, there would not be a multitude of the needy. Dissolve your guild, and we will all have sufficiency. All accuse the usurers, and there is no remedy for the evil—law, prophets, evangelists. For instance, what the divine Amos says: Hear, you who grind down the poor from morning and oppress the needy on the earth, you who say: When will the month pass and we will make a profit? For not even fathers rejoice so much at the birth of their children as usurers delight when the months are completed. And they call the sin by respectable names, calling the profit philanthropic, imitating the Greeks, who call certain misanthropic and murderous demons Eumenides instead of their true name. Philanthropic indeed! For the payment of interest does not destroy households, consume wealth, make the well-born live worse than slaves, delighting for a little at the beginnings and preparing a bitter life for later.

For just as birds that are plotted against by fowlers delight when the seeds are scattered for them and make their pleasant and customary dwelling in those places where food is abundant for them, but a little later, caught in the traps, they perish, so those who take the interest on loans, after having prospered for a short time, later fall out of their ancestral hearth itself. But pity is absent from the souls of the polluted and avaricious, and seeing the very house of the debtor set up for sale, they are not moved, but rather hasten the sale, so that, having received the gold more quickly, they may bind another wretch with a loan, like the zealous and insatiable hunters who, having encircled one valley with their nets and having swept up all the wild beasts in it, again move the stakes to the neighboring ravine, and from that to another, and so on until they empty the mountains of game. With what eyes, then, do you, such a man, look up to heaven? And how do you ask for remission of sin? Or perhaps, from insensibility, you also say this in prayer, which the Savior taught: "Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors"? Oh, how many, because of interest, have resorted to the noose and given themselves over to the streams of rivers, and judged death lighter than the moneylender, and have left behind orphaned children who have poverty as a harsh stepmother.

But the worthy usurers do not even then spare the deserted house, but they drag the heirs—who have perhaps inherited only the noose of the halter—and demand gold from those who procure their bread by charity. And when reproached, as is natural, for the death of the debtor, and when some mention the halter to shame them, they do not even veil themselves before the tragedy, nor are they stricken in their soul, but from a bitter disposition they utter shameless words: "And is this an injustice of our character, if that wretched and ungrateful man, having drawn a depraved lot in birth, was led by the compulsion of fate to a violent death?" For the usurers also philosophize and become disciples of the Egyptian astrologers, whenever it is necessary to defend their abominable practices and murders. So one must say to one of them: "You are the depraved lot in birth, you are the evil compulsion of the stars. For if you had lightened his burden and had remitted part of the debt, and had received part with leniency, he would not have hated his laborious life, nor would he have become his own executioner. With what eyes, then, at the time of the resurrection, will you look upon the murdered man? For both of you will come before the tribunal of Christ, where interest

are judged, but lives are judged. What will you say when accused before the impartial judge, when it is said to you: You had the law, the prophets, the evangelical commandments; you heard all of them crying out with one voice for love, for philanthropy, some saying, "You shall not lend at interest to your brother," others, "He did not give money at interest," still others, "If you lend to your brother, you will not oppress him"? And Matthew cried out in parables, proclaiming the Lord's word: "Wicked slave, I forgave you that entire debt because you begged me; should you not also have pitied your fellow slave, as I pitied you?" And the Lord, angered, handed him over to the torturers until he repaid everything owed to him. Then useless repentance will overtake you, heavy groans will overtake you, and inexorable punishment; nowhere will gold help, nowhere will silver defend, and the repayment of interest will be more bitter than gall. These are not words to frighten, but true things that testify to the judgment before experience, which it is good for the prudent and for one who has forethought for the future to avoid. And so that I may benefit the listeners by relating something among the judgments of God also from our own times, hear the account, and perhaps many of you will recognize the story as familiar. There was a certain man in this city (I will not mention his name, avoiding the comic naming of the deceased) whose craft was lending and the profit from filthy interest.

Held fast by the passion of avarice, he was sparing even in his own expenses (for such are the avaricious), setting out no adequate table, not changing his garment regularly or as needed, not providing his children with the necessary means of life, not quickly resorting to the bath for fear of the fee and the three obols, devising every means by which he might increase the number of his moneys to a greater sum. Nor did he consider any guardian of his purse trustworthy—neither child, nor slave, nor banker, nor key, nor seal—but thrusting the gold into the holes of the walls and smearing clay over it from the outside, he kept his treasure hidden from all, shifting it from place to place, from wall to wall, cunningly contriving to escape the notice of everyone. He suddenly departed from life without revealing to any of his household where the gold was buried. So he was buried in turn, having gained only the hiding of it. But his children, who had hoped to become more splendid than all in the city through wealth, searched everywhere, inquired of one another, questioned the servants, dug up the floors of the houses, hollowed out the walls, pried into the houses of neighbors and acquaintances, and having moved every stone, as the saying goes, found not even an obol; and they live their lives homeless, hearthless, poor, cursing their father’s vanity many times each day. Such, O usurers, is your friend and comrade, who ended his life in a manner worthy of his character—a wind-egg money-maker, toiling in pains and hunger, and gathering as an inheritance for himself eternal punishment, and for his offspring, poverty.

You do not know, then, for whom you amass or toil: the circumstances are many, the sycophants countless, and ambushers and pirates harass both land and sea. See to it that you do not gain the sins and fail to keep the gold. But this man is burdensome to us, they say (for I know your mutterings under your breath), and by constantly propping us up at the tribunal he plots against the beneficiaries and those in need. Behold, we will no longer offer a loan: and how will those in distress get by? The words are worthy of the deeds, the retort fitting for those darkened by the gloom of money: for they have neither the criterion of the mind strengthened so as to understand what is said, but rather they hear the advice of those who admonish them in the opposite sense; for as if I were saying that one should not lend, so they mutter and threaten to shut the doors to those in need. But I first proclaim and enjoin giving freely. Then I also urge lending (for a loan is a second form of gift), but to do this not with interest or usury, but as the divine word has ordained for us: for both the one who does not give a loan and the one who gives with interest are equally liable to punishment, since the misanthropy of the former and the huckstering of the latter are condemned. But they desert to the opposite extreme, promising to withhold the giving entirely. This is a shameless obstinacy, a mad contentiousness against what is right, a strife and war against God. For either I will not give, he says, or in lending I will make the contract interest-bearing.

Now, then, the discourse has sufficiently contended against the usurers, and I have adequately completed the accusations as in a court of law; and may God grant them repentance. But concerning those who borrow rashly and recklessly impale themselves on the hooks of interest, I will make no speech, having judged that the counsel which our inspired father Basil wisely elaborated in his own treatise is sufficient for them, having made a longer discourse for those who borrow thoughtlessly than for those who lend greedily.