Usury

Money in the ancient world was viewed very differently from what it is in the modern world. Aristotle’s simple but powerful belief that “money was barren” and therefore interest was unjust. This belief is found in various forms both in the Old and New Testaments.[i]

In the ancient world usury was not limited to charging exorbitant interest rates on loans, which is how it is usually understood today. Usury was synonymous with almost any sort of economic exploitation. Charging excessive prices for goods, simply because they had become scarcer naturally or by “engrossing” (buying commodities in such quantities as to raise the price in market[ii]), as well as any form of monopoly or foreclosure, were all deemed to be “usury.”[iii]

In the fourteenth century John Wycliffe preached, “It was their vulnerability to usury that made men curse and hate it more than any other sin.” The prohibition against usury was considered to be a matter of protecting the everyday livelihood of the ordinary village craftsmen and small farmers.

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[i] http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/socialculture/tp/Roman-Society.htm

[ii] http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?action=search&word=engrossing&resource=Webster%27s&quicksearch=on

[iii] A History of Money By Glyn Davies © 1994; University of Wales Press, Cardiff; p. 218