When and why did the Christian Church stop viewing usury as a sin? | Notes and Queries (2024)

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When and why did the Christian Church stop viewing usury as a sin? | Notes and Queries? ›

The taking of interest was forbidden to clerics from AD 314. It was strictly forbidden for laymen in 1179. The beginning of the end as far as the total ban on interest was concerned came in the sixteenth century.

Usury]. Law (July 2009) (link). In sum, early Christian doctrine prohibited usury, which was originally understood as a ban on charging any interest on any kind of loan. 62 Charging interest was understood as a violation of commutative justice because it robbed the borrower of the fruits of his own capital.

The Christian church drew on biblical passages and moral and religious reasons to define usury as a sin. The Church placed a ban on the practice of usury to prevent this “evil”. In Islam, the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad led Muslims to also view usury as a crime.

Hence, today, the mere possession of money means a certain value. Whoever hands over this possession can claim in return this value. Thus it is that one acts in demanding an interest. Even today one can still sin against justice by demanding too high an interest, or usury, as it is called.

Usury is the sin of forcing borrowers to pay money for nothing. In the feudal economy, when the costs of administering a loan, inflation, default risk, and opportunity cost were zero, or nearly so, any interest was considered unjustified, and so any interest was considered usury.

The Old Testament "condemns the practice of charging interest on a poor person because a loan should be an act of compassion and taking care of one's neighbor"; it teaches that "making a profit off a loan from a poor person is exploiting that person (Exodus 22:25–27)." Similarly, charging of interest (Hebrew: נֶֽשֶׁךְ, ...

Merchant wealth challenged the Church's view of usury. Usury was the practice of lending money and charging a very high interest rate. German and English nobility disliked Italian domination of the Church.

Aquinas argued against usury from the standpoint of what money was formally: usury was wrong because it was the selling of money, which as a measurement, cannot be sold. “To sell money would be to give simultaneously two different evaluations to the same measure” (53).

In the modern era Islamists and revivalists preach that all interest is socially unjust and should be banned (John Esposito). Narrower definition in most Muslim-majority countries: riba means "excessive interest" or "compound interest" (John Esposito).

By the early 1900s there was a move in the U.S. to deregulate, which caused some states to eliminate their usury laws and others to raise the usury cap to 10% or 12%. In 2010, most states had usury laws on their books and the general usury rate cap varied from 5.5% (Delaware) to 16% (N.Y.)

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The eternal sin—blasphemy against the Holy Spirit—is the mortal sin of final impenitence, e.g., dying unrepentant, which cannot be forgiven precisely because the sinner refuses to accept forgiveness.

Nevertheless, the 12th canon of the First Council of Carthage (345) and the 36th canon of the Council of Aix (789) have declared it to be reprehensible even for laymen to make money by lending at interest. The canonical laws of the Middle Ages absolutely forbade the practice.

Later, in the New Testament (Luke 6:35), Jesus said, “Lend, hoping for nothing again.” In 1187 Pope Urban III declared usury a mortal sin and both St. Thomas Aquinas and Dante denounced it.

Summary: Borrowing and lending are both approved practices in the Bible as long as interest rates are reasonable, no interest is imposed upon the poor and the money is paid back in a responsible and timely fashion. If someone cannot fulfill these principles, it would be sinful to borrow.

Although there are some who experience gambling as something rewarding and fun, it tends toward being highly addictive and potentially ruinous. The Bible doesn't call gambling a sin as such, although the Bible warns against the love of money and get-rich-quick schemes.

In essence, however, usury is the acceptance of a premium for the mere use of a thing given in loan. Objectively it is the premium paid for a pure loan. The word has come to mean taking advantage of another who is in need. As such, it is forbidden by the natural law, because it is contrary to commutative justice.

As the Church teaches, “Those whose usurious and avaricious dealings lead to the hunger and death of their brethren in the human family indirectly commit homicide, which is imputable to them” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2269).

In the 1978 case, Marquette National Bank v. First of Omaha Service Corp., the Court unanimously held that nationally chartered banks may charge the highest rate allowed in the bank's home state. This is why many banks are in states like Delaware and South Dakota, which have very liberal or nonexistent usury laws.