aking this truth clear, science will give to religion
far more than it will take away, for it will throw new life and light
into all sacred literature.

CHAPTER XIX. FROM LEVITICUS TO POLITICAL ECONOMY

I. ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF HOSTILITY TO LOANS AT INTEREST.

Among questions on which the supporters of right reason in political
and social science have only conquered theological opposition after
centuries of war, is the taking of interest on loans. In hardly any
struggle has rigid adherence to the letter of our sacred books been more
prolonged and injurious.

Certainly, if the criterion of truth, as regards any doctrine, be that
of St. Vincent of Lerins--that it has been held in the Church "always,
everywhere, and by all"--then on no point may a Christian of these days
be more sure than that every savings institution, every loan and trust
company, every bank, every loan of capital by an individual, every means
by which accumulated capital has been lawfully lent even at the most
moderate interest, to make men workers rather than paupers, is based on
deadly sin.

The early evolution of the belief that taking interest for money is
sinful presents a curious working together of metaphysical, theological,
and humanitarian ideas.

In the main centre of ancient Greek civilization, the loaning of money
at interest came to be accepted at an early period as a condition of
productive industry, and no legal restriction was imposed. In Rome there
was a long process of development: the greed of creditors in early times
led to laws against the taking of interest; but, though these lasted
long, that strong practical sense which gave Rome the empire of
the world substituted finally, for this absolute prohibition, the
establishment of rates by law. Yet many of the leading Greek and
Roman thinkers opposed this practical settlement of the question, and,
foremost of all, Aristotle. In a metaphysical way he declared that money
is by nature "barren"; that the birth of money from money is therefore
"unnatural"; and hence that the taking of interest is to be censured
and hated. Plato, Plutarch, both the Catos, Cicero, Seneca, and
various other leaders of ancient thought, arrived at much the same
conclusion--sometimes from sympathy with oppressed debtors; sometimes
from dislike of usurers; sometimes from simple contempt of trade.

From these sources there came into the early Church the germ of a
theological theory upon the