ix per
cent." But it is only just to say that at a later period Luther took
a much more moderate view. Melanchthon, defining usury as any interest
whatever, condemned it again and again; and the Goldberg Catechism of
1558, for which he wrote a preface and recommendation, declares every
person taking interest for money a thief. From generation to generation
this doctrine was upheld by the more eminent divines of the Lutheran
Church in all parts of Germany. The English reformers showed the same
hostility to interest-bearing loans. Under Henry VIII the law of Henry
VII against taking interest had been modified for the better; but the
revival of religious feeling under Edward VI caused in 1552 the passage
of the "Bill of Usury." In this it is said, "Forasmuch as usury is
by the word of God utterly prohibited, as a vice most odious and
detestable, as in divers places of the Holy Scriptures it is evident to
be seen, which thing by no godly teachings and persuasions can sink into
the hearts of divers greedy, uncharitable, and covetous persons of
this realm, nor yet, by any terrible threatenings of God's wrath and
vengeance," etc., it is enacted that whosoever shall thereafter lend
money "for any manner of usury, increase, lucre, gain, or interest, to
be had, received, or hoped for," shall forfeit principal and interest,
and suffer imprisonment and fine at the king's pleasure.(453)

(453) For Luther's views, see his sermon, Von dem Wucher, Wittenberg,
1519; also the Table Talk, cited in Coquelin and Guillaumin, article
Interet. For the later, more moderate views of Luther, Melanchthon, and
Zwingli, making a compromise with the needs of society, see Bohm-Bawerk,
p. 27, citing Wiskemann. For Melanchthon and a long line of the most
eminent Lutheran divines who have denounced the taking of interest, see
Die Wucherfrage, St. Louis, 1869, pp. 94 et seq. For the law against
usury under Edward VI, see Cobbett's Parliamentary History, vol. i, p.
596; see also Craik, History of British Commerce, chap. vi.

But, most fortunately, it happened that Calvin, though at times
stumbling over the usual texts against the taking of interest for money,
turned finally in the right direction. He cut through the metaphysical
arguments of Aristotle, and characterized the subtleties devised to
evade the Scriptures as "a childish game with God." In place of
these subtleties there was developed among Protestants a serviceable
fiction--the stateme