* Introduction
* Many divergent opinions
* Taking advantage of the poor - Divine
* Excessive rates in loans
* Any surplus taken on a transaction - Pesch
* Any interest on any loan
* Interest on loans for consumption - Belloc, McCall
* Scripture
* Hebrew (Divine, 6) https://archive.org/details/interesthistoric0000thom
* Masah: to take interest and to oppress
* Nesek: to bite, oppress or take interest
* Passages:
* Exodus 22:25 - lend to the poor, oppress with usuries
* Leviticus 25:35-37 - take no usury from brother
* Deuteronomy 23: 19-20 - tolerance of usury against foreigners
* Ezekiel 18:4-9: places usury among idolatry, adultery, theft and murder
* All usuries are forbidden
* Jermone reads this as part of a development culminating in the words of Jesus
* Luke 6:35 - lend hoping nothing in return
* Fullness of the revelation
* Medievals disputed
* Counsel vs. precept
* Hope not for interest or even principle
* Church Fathers - https://www.jstor.org/stable/1582909
* Greek Father
* Gregory of Nyssa, Basil and Gregory Nazianzen
* Based on Aristotelian "sterility of money" argument
* Latin Fathers
* Augustine and Jerome
* Ambrose - significant development - De Tobia - https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b109460&view=1up&seq=5
* And do you think you are acting piously because you receive as it were a loan [mutuum] 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.
* Links the Scriptural masah and nesek to the Roman law usura and mutuum
* Studied Roman law, was a judicial councillor and governor in the Roman Empire
* Also mentions other Roman law contracts: hypotheca, pignus, fiducia, etc.
* 12th Century canonists - McClaughin - https://archive.org/details/MediaevalStudies/Mediaeval%20Studies%20-%20Volume%2001%20-%201939/page/80/mode/2up
* Renewed study of Roman law
* Usury is anything on a mutuum
* Usury is found only in a mutuum
* Early Scholastic and Doctors
* All agree that usury is more taken on a mutuum
* Bonaventure - https://archive.org/details/05636860.5.emory.edu/page/527/mode/2up?q=usura
* Aquinas
* Some confusion around Aquinas, because appears to tie specifically to money and consumption
* Links to mutuum contract
* https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.II-II.Q78
* https://aquinas.cc/la/la/~QDeMalo.Q13.A4.Rep15
* Late Scholastics
* All agree that usury is profit from a mutuum contract
* Cajetan, de Soto, Vitoria, Molina, De Lugo, etc.
* Bernard Dempsey, SJ says that everyone agrees what usury is at this point: https://archive.org/details/InterestAndUsuryDempseyBernardW.S.J.1905277/page/n173/mode/2up
* Lateran V - https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum18.htm
* Some will note this definition in discussing usury
* Definition: For, that is the real meaning of usury: when, from its use, a thing which produces nothing is applied to the acquiring of gain and profit without any work, any expense or any risk.
* Reasons not given by Council
* Arises in context of explaining those opposed to the Montes Pietatis, a position rejected by the Council
* Contemporaries don't seem to accept as Scholastics don't cite Lateran V in defining usury
* First appears in late 19th/early 20th century by Neo-Scholastics (e.g. Prummer) who cites Bucceroni, SJ's Enchirdion Morale which take it out of context
* Even given it is from the Council
* It is radically deficient as a definition: mentions only a thing that does not fructify and not what contract. What are we to make of the sense of labor, risk or expense here?
* Needs to be put in the context of the broader tradition that takes usury as exacting profit from a mutuum. Here the ambiguities and deficiencies are resolved.
* Vix Pervenit - english https://www.papalencyclicals.net/ben14/b14vixpe.htm, Latin - http://www.domus-ecclesiae.de/magisterium/vix-pervenit.html
* Benedict XIV writes in the mid-1700's to address problems and settle the question
* Defines the sin of usury as arising from the mutuum contract and taking anything over the principle
* Confirms what has always been held by the faith
* Degradation
* Silence of the Magisterium since Vix Pervenit
* Holy Office in the 1830's and French Bishops
* Parisian Priest - Le Correr https://archive.org/details/dejustoauctario00roeygoog/page/n54/mode/2up?view=theater
* Mutuum consumptionis et productionis
* Similar to Belloc
* Rejected contemporaneously by Benedict XIV
* Goes back to extrinsic titles
* Cajetan admitted that business men could take more the principal on mutuum loans from each other. https://archive.org/details/the-scholastic-analysis-of-usury/page/253/mode/2up?view=theater
* Some priest simply read canon law
* See ambiguity in canon law and take it as on any transaction
