of the same kind of acquisition, because it consisted in making money from money, which was thus employed for a function different from that for which it had been originally invented.  ’Usury is most reasonably detested, as the increase of our fortune arises from the money itself, and not by employing it for the purpose for which it was intended.  For it was devised for the sake of exchange, but usury multiplies it.  And hence usury has received the name of [Greek:  tokos], or produce; for whatever is produced is itself like its parents; and usury is merely money born of money; so that of all means of money-making it is the most contrary to nature.’[1] We need not pause here to discuss the precise significance of Aristotle’s conceptions on this subject, as they are to us not so much of importance in themselves, as because they suggested a basis for the treatment of usury to Aquinas and his followers.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Aristotle, Politics, i. 10.]

[Footnote 2:  Cleary, op. cit., p. 29.]

In Rome, as in Greece, the philosophers and moralists were unanimous in their condemnation of the practice of usury.  Cicero condemns usury as being hateful to mankind, and makes Cato say that it is on the same level of moral obliquity as murder; and Seneca makes a point that became of some importance in the Middle Ages, namely, that usury is wrongful because it involves the selling of time.[1] Plutarch develops the argument that money is sterile, and condemns the practices of contemporary money-lenders as unjust.[2] The teaching of the philosophers as to the unlawfulness of usury was reflected in the popular feeling of the time.[3]

[Footnote 1:  Cleary, op. cit., p. 29.]

[Footnote 2:  De Vitando Aere Alieno.]

[Footnote 3:  Espinas, op. cit., pp. 81-2; Roscher, Political Economy, s. 90.]

Sec. 2. Usury in the Old Testament.

The question of usury therefore attracted considerable attention in the teaching and practice of pagan antiquity.  It occupied an equally important place in the Old Testament.  In Exodus we find the first prohibition of usury:  ’If thou lend money to any of my people being poor, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor, neither shall ye lay upon him usury.’[1] In Leviticus we read:  ’And if thy brother be waxen poor, and his hand fail with thee; then, thou must uphold him; as a stranger and a sojourner shall he live with thee.  Take thou no money of him or increase, but fear thy God that thy brother may live with thee.  Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor give him victuals for increase.’[2] Deuteronomy lays down a wider prohibition:  ’Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury; unto a foreigner thou mayest lend upon usury, but unto thy brother thou mayest not lend upon usury.’[3] It will be noticed that the first and second of these texts do not forbid usury except in the case of loans to the poor, and, if we had them alone to consider, we could conclude that loans to the rich or to business men were allowed.  The last text, however, extends the prohibition to all loans to one’s brother—­an expression which was of importance in Christian times, as Christian writers maintained the universal brotherhood of man.