Usury in the early church · Sophia Scriptura

Lending at interest. Part of Wealth and poverty.

Apocalypse of Peter (Akhmim fragment) 31Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Usurers stand in a lake of pus, blood and boiling mire.
Miscellanies 2.18.84Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · True understanding of the law is not passionate fear; the fear of the Lord gives life, as Barnabas teaches; the law forbids lending at interest to a brother, and the generous receive the interest of virtue and good name.
Against Marcion 4.17Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Tertullian argues that Christ's teaching on lending, mercy, judging, and being called “Lord” in Luke 6 continues the Creator's law and prophets, and mocks Marcion's god as a eunuch who forbids marriage yet claims sons.
Instructions 2.24Commodian · 3rd century (disputed) · Alms given from extortion, usury, or profiting from persecution are rejected by God.
To Quirinus 3.48Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Lending money at interest is forbidden by Scripture.
Lepr. 17Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Usurious bishops and greedy laity are the leprous warp and woof of the church; Christ's teaching on wealth, enemies, and trust in the Father condemns them.
Canon 20Anonymous · ca. 306 (disputed, ca. 295–314) · Clergy who lend at interest are degraded; laymen are pardoned if they stop, but expelled if they persist.
Church History 5.18.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Apollonius: true prophets do not dye their hair, use make-up, gamble, or lend at interest, as the Montanist prophets do.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.8.42Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Laws against bribery, theft, and interest bind Jewish society together.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 59.2Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · He will be honest, content, free of envy and theft, and lend without interest.
Canon 12Anonymous · 1 August 314 · Clergy who lend at interest are excluded from communion.
Canon 17Anonymous · 325 · Clergy who lend at interest, in any form, are to be deposed.
Demonstration 14.3Aphrahat · 337-345 · Leaders in the church have become greedy usurers and corrupt judges, favouring the rich and despising the poor, so that the prophets' indictments fit their day.
Canon 13Anonymous · ca. 345–348 · Clerics may not lend at interest, since Scripture plainly forbids it to all.
Letter 109Basil of Caesarea · ca. 357–378 · Basil asks Helladius to help Julitta, a widowed kinswoman, against creditors who demand interest after she has paid the principal.
Homilies on the Psalms 14.7Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Basil opens his second homily on Psalm 14 (15), on Ps 15:5a, by condemning lending at interest from the Law and the Prophets and by portraying the moneylender's hypocrisy toward the needy borrower.
Homilies on the Psalms 14.8Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Basil describes the borrower's brief luxury and long misery, urges the poor to sell their goods rather than borrow, and explains interest (tokos, “offspring”) as an unnaturally fertile beast.
Homilies on the Psalms 14.9Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Basil urges the poor to work or beg rather than borrow, describes the ruin of debtors and their children, and tells the rich to lend to the poor as to God, who repays the interest himself.
Tractates on the Psalms 14.15Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Lending at interest to the poor is a cruel kindness; what is done to the poor is done to Christ, who became poor.
Oration 16.18Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory lists the sins behind the disaster: seizing the land of the poor, usury, withholding first-fruits, neglecting widows and orphans, hoarding, injustice, and attributing ill-gotten wealth to God.
Tractates 1.9.4Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno describes the usurer, the man who closes common land, and the grain-hoarder who profits from famine.
Apostolic Canon 44Anonymous · ca. 380 · Clergy may not take interest on loans.
On Tobit 7Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · Lending to the needy is good, but lending at interest is evil and forbidden by the law, as Tobit taught his son.
On Tobit 10Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · The moneylender, cold to a plea for help, becomes warm at the mention of interest and binds the borrower in lasting debt.
On Tobit 11Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · The rich exploit the poor through interest, giving harm where help is sought.
On Tobit 12Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · David laments usury in the city before speaking of Judas’s betrayal; the moneylender is like the devil.
On Tobit 14Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · Puns on the words for interest and capital show usury’s worthlessness and cruelty; God freed the fathers from usury.
On Tobit 25Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · The debtor lives in fear of the lender, and God sees both, condemning the one’s greed and the other’s folly.
On Tobit 26Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · The debtor flees the lender in terror like a hunted beast or hooked fish, and is at last forced to sell even his family tomb.
On Tobit 38Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · Moneylenders profit from gamblers’ losses and rule over them like tyrants.
On Tobit 40Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · The lender who demands his money back at once is hateful, and his many legal names multiply the debt.
On Tobit 41Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · Lent money is like a viper that breeds its own brood of evils and kills by its “head,” the principal.
On Tobit 42Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · Interest breeds like offspring, compounding month by month, as the Greek word tokos suggests.
On Tobit 43Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · Interest breeds endlessly, unlike nature, which keeps the times Ecclesiastes describes.
On Tobit 46Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · The law of Moses repeatedly forbids lending at interest, calling it choking the poor, long before Cato said the same.
On Tobit 48Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · Deuteronomy forbids exacting interest from a brother, who shares our nature and grace.
On Tobit 49Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · Taking interest in goods instead of money is still interest and evades the law.
On Tobit 51Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · The law’s permission to take interest from foreigners meant only enemies; every fellow believer and fellow citizen is a brother.
On Tobit 52Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · Leviticus, the Psalms, and Ezekiel all condemn interest, and Ezekiel ranks the usurer with the idolater.
On Tobit 54Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · Christ commands lending without hope of return; lender and debtor alike are called sinners.
On Tobit 59Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · The psalm says the just man lends all day long; but what does he lend, if riches make entering the kingdom hard?
On Tobit 88Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · Ambrose answers those who objected that usury is old: so is sin, which Christ came to abolish.
On the Lord's Prayer 1187Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Sins of thought and will are countless, and no one is pure; so all must ask for forgiveness, but the prayer is useless unless we forgive others, since the creditor who imprisons his debtor and charges interest condemns himself.
On the Duties of the Clergy 3.3Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · To take from another for one’s own advantage violates the example of Christ, the meaning of “humanity,” the unity of the body, the law of God, and the law of nature.
On the Duties of the Clergy 3.6Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · Hoarding grain to raise prices in famine, however defended as industry, is avarice condemned by Scripture; Joseph opened the granaries, and the rich fool’s barns brought him nothing.
Exposition of Psalm 118 14.37.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Dead to the world and alive in Christ, the saint flees the city’s snares of usury and deceit.
Letter 153.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · An advocate who wins unjust cases has more reason to restore his fees than a minor official; usury too is wrong possession, though no court will order its return.
Homilies on Matthew 5.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Closing exhortation of Homily 5: the saints' prayers do not replace our own effort; almsgiving, even from ill-gotten gain, is lending to God at a higher interest; usury is condemned as cruelty disguised as kindness.
Homilies on Matthew 56.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · God asks not hard labors but easy obedience: release from unjust loans and help for the poor; Chrysostom denounces Christians who lend at interest, trading on the poverty of others, and urges them to lend instead to God, who repays a hundredfold.
Homilies on Matthew 56.6John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The poor man’s gratitude for a loan at interest is forced, like Abraham’s yielding of his wife; interest is forbidden by Scripture and despised even by Roman law for senators, it ruins lender and borrower alike, and alms paid from it are unacceptable to God.
Homilies on Matthew 61.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom lists God’s benefits and then the daily sins of soldiers, tradesmen and landowners, and explains why the king threatened the debtor with sale and then forgave him the whole debt.
Sermon 38.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Treasure hidden in the ground is neither safe nor enjoyed, but what is given to the poor is lent to God, who forbids usury to men yet pays back eternal riches for temporal gifts.
Sermon 113.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ’s “least ones” are those who have left everything to follow him; “mammon of iniquity” means riches, and alms must be given from honest labor, not from plunder or usury, since God cannot be bribed like a corrupt judge.
Sermon 239.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Lend to God, who repays a hundredfold; when lending to people, take no interest and do not press a debtor who cannot yet repay or force him to sell his home.
Canon 14Anonymous · date disputed (between ca. 442 and 506) · Clerics who lend at interest, farm others' property, or trade for gain are deposed and excommunicated.