ce_.

Before passing from the question of price, we must discuss the
legitimacy of the various occupations which were concerned with buying
and selling. The principal matter which arises for consideration
in this regard is the attitude of the mediaeval theologians towards
commerce. Aquinas discusses the legitimacy of commerce in the same
question in which he discusses just price, and indeed the two subjects
are closely allied, because the importance of the observance of
justice in buying and selling grew urgent as commerce extended and
advanced.

In order to understand the disapprobation with which commerce was on
the whole regarded in the Middle Ages, it is necessary to appreciate
the importance of the Christian teaching on the dignity of labour. The
principle that, far from being a degrading or humiliating occupation,
as it had been regarded in Greece and Rome, manual labour was, on
the contrary, one of the most noble ways of serving God, effected
a revolution in the economic sphere analogous to that which the
Christian sanctification of marriage effected in the domestic sphere.
The Christian teaching on labour was grounded on the Divine precepts
contained in both the Old and New Testaments,[1] and upon the example
of Christ, who was Himself a working man. The Gospel was preached
amongst the poor, and St. Paul continued his humble labours during
his apostolate.[2] A life of idleness was considered something to be
avoided, instead of something to be desired, as it had been in the
ancient civilisations. Gerson says it is against the nature of man to
wish to live without labour as usurers do,[3] and Langenstein
inveighs against usurers and all who live without work.[4] 'We read
in Sebastian Brant that the idlers are the most foolish amongst fools,
they are to every people like smoke to the eyes or vinegar to
the teeth. Only by labour is God truly praised and honoured; and
Trithemius says "Man is born to labour as the bird to fly, and hence
it is contrary to the nature of man when he thinks to live without
work."'[5] The example of the monasteries, where the performance
of all sorts of manual labour was not thought inconsistent with the
administration of the sacred offices and the pursuit of the highest
intellectual exercises, acted as a powerful assertion to the laity
of the dignity of labour in the scheme of things.[6] The value of the
monastic example in this respect cannot be too highly estimated. 'When
we consider