Let someone come forward who can help. Who can fill such a great Charybdis? Who can understand the reasoning of a moneylender? Who can satisfy greed? Which person does not exaggerate prices, when they see the buyers? For he is not nourished so much by his own profit as by the detriment of others. Truly, it is true, as it is a divine saying, of God, who when he was angry because of the impiety of the Jewish people, because they were turning away to foreign gods: To whom, he says, have I sold you as a debtor (Isaiah 50:1)? For one who is bound to a lender is sold, and is sold not for a single price, but for a daily one: it is sold not with a specification, but with continuous addition. A new auction of interest for each month, a new sale under daily bidding. Whoever offers the most always wins, he is assigned as for sale, never is he estimated as if sold. Therefore, the power of the heavenly sentence is great. The Lord did not judge it sufficient to say: To whom did I sell you; but he added: to the lender? Offended, he could not find anything more serious to avenge against the treacherous ones. Abandoned, he demands why they have fled from the author of their own salvation, as if the Lord had sold them to someone like a loan shark deserving of punishment. Those who have abandoned the Lord have servants who fear more than the punishments and chains of prison: they have children who fear the carelessness of their own freedom.
Moreover, take note that the subject of usury has been judged as a matter of prevarication; that one easily strays from the Lord, who could bind himself to a usurer. For usury is the root of falsehood, the cause of treachery. 'I did not sell you,' he says, 'but you were sold by your own sins.' Therefore, he who binds himself to a usurer sells himself; and what is worse, he sells himself not for money, but for guilt.
Caput IX.
It is a sin for a moneylender to be a devil, who even shows off his riches to the Savior; he is not unlike a moneylender; and there he speaks of the hundredth of interest, and a hundredth of a sheep; and of the true collector who imposes on himself the name of creditor.
33. Who is this lender of sin, if not the devil, from whom Eve borrowed the sin of a guilty succession and with interest brought all of humanity into ruin? As if a wicked lender, he held the handwriting which the Lord later destroyed with his own blood. For what was written with the pen of death should have been dissolved by death. Therefore, the devil is the lender. Moreover, he showed his riches to the Savior, saying: 'All these things I will give you if you fall down and worship me.' (Matthew 4:9). But the Lord, the liberator of the air, owed nothing to anyone who could say, 'Behold, the ruler of this world is coming, and he finds nothing of his own in me' (John 14:30). He owed nothing, but he paid for everyone, as he himself testifies, saying, 'What I did not seize, then I paid for' (Psalm 69:5).
34. What is the difference of the malice of this world's prince? The moneylender binds the head, holds the hand, takes by lot. O sad name from sweet! The Lord has freed the one hundredth sheep; that hundredth is of salvation, this of death; and the good land yields a hundredfold fruit. Woe to those who say that bitter is sweet, and sweet is bitter! What is more bitter than usury, what is sweeter than grace? Should they not, by this very word by which they call it the hundredth, call to mind the Redeemer who came to save the hundredth sheep, not to lose it?
35. Who is the more severe tax collector? And what a sad name. Finally the Lord says: My people, your tax collectors oppress you (Isaiah 3:14). And in the Gospel you have: While you go with your adversary to the magistrate, make an effort to be delivered from him; lest he bring you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the tax collector, and the tax collector put you in prison (Luke 12:58). Recognize this tax collector, who even demands the last penny, and calls himself a creditor, and in this name also commits fraud: like one who smears poison cups with honey, so that death may lie hidden under a pleasing smell, and the lips of the cup hide the power of deceit. The creditor is concealed as if faithful; and as if incredulous, to whom the faithful person pledges.
Caput X.
The story of the debtor's executor preventing the debtor's body from being carried to burial.
How often have I seen the deceased held by usurers as collateral, and denied a burial, while interest is demanded? To this I willingly agreed, so that they could coerce their debtor, so that with him chosen, the surety could be released; for these are the laws of a usurer. Therefore, I said: Hold onto your defendant; and so that he cannot escape from you, lead him home, confine him in your chamber, harsher than executioners; for the prison does not receive the one you hold, the collector absolves; after death, the prison releases the guilty of their sins, but you confine them; by the severity of the law, the deceased is acquitted, but held by you. Certainly here he mentions having fulfilled his fate; however, I do not envy, keep your pledge. There is no difference between a funeral and usury, no difference between death and fate: the usury echoes the funeral wail. Now truly he is a diminished head whom you convene; yet bind him with stronger bonds, lest your chains go unnoticed: the debtor is tough and rigid, and no longer knows how to blush. There is indeed one thing you cannot fear, because he does not know how to ask for sustenance.
37. Therefore, the body of Jussi was lifted and led to the house of the moneylender to carry out the order of the funeral rites. But even from there, the closed doors resounded with such mournful groans. You would also believe that there was a funeral, that the dead were being mourned: the sentiment was not wrong, except that it was clear that more people were destined to die there. The moneylender, driven by the custom of his religion (for elsewhere even such things are said to be accepted as collateral), asked that the remains be taken to the place of the tomb; it was only then that I saw the moneylenders burdened with humanity; nevertheless, I mentioned their humanity to foresee that they would not later complain of being deceived, until they bent their necks to the bier and themselves led the deceased to the graves, mourning their money's funeral with a heavier sorrow.
Caput XI.
Interest is also demanded from gamblers, whose fortune varies in play, but the profit goes to the moneylender. How great is the tyranny of these people over the gamblers, and what laws govern them. Lastly, the madness of certain barbarians is described in relation to gambling.
Take another thing of no lesser bitterness. These people observe gatherings of gamblers and consider it advantageous for the loser: they bet on each individual. Luck plays a role at first, victory often transfers to different people, and their rewards and hardships are constantly changing: they all both win and are defeated, only the moneylender profits. The empty name of victory belongs to others, but the moneylender alone receives the benefits, not yearly, but momentary; they alone gain profit at the expense of all, they alone have the interest of victory. You see the others suddenly needy, suddenly wealthy, and then naked, changing their state with every throw. For their life revolves like a dice; the census rolls on the board, danger becomes a game, and from the game comes danger: as many proposals, so many proscriptions. The applause of the applauders, the weeping of the plundered, the groans of the mourners. Among them sits the creditor like a tyrant, condemning each one with a capital sentence, waving his spear, establishing a funeral auction from the spoils of each individual: some are added to the proscription, others to slavery: those killed under tyrants are not worth so much. Therefore, this game of life is more properly called a gamble than a monetary transaction; it is carried on in an instant, yet its effects may last forever. Drunkenness makes decisions, and no one disputes them. The game of chance also has its own rules, which are not subject to the laws of the courtroom. It is noteworthy, if it can be believed, that infamy awaits those who think resistance is futile, and the judgment of infamy inflicts a greater disgrace than a judicial condemnation; for those who are condemned by them are esteemed glorious by the judge, while those who are condemned by the judge are considered criminals by them. Moses, the elder, established the judgment of the elders (Exodus XVIII): yet they judged of lighter matters; the weighty matter, that is, the more important affairs, they were accustomed to reserve for Moses' judgment. It is said here: You have judged the counsel of lions, and their power is more feared than lions. Among these wild beasts, you live and move. You take food from these animals, you are considered more terrifying than them, you are feared more cruelly than them.
39. They say that the peoples of the Chuni wage war against everyone for reasons, but are subject to moneylenders; and although they live without laws, they obey only the laws of gambling, playing dice and carrying them in their equipment, and dying more often from their own throws than from those of the enemy: in their victory they become captive, and suffer the spoils of their own people, which they do not know how to suffer from the enemy: therefore they never give up their desire for war; because when defeated in gambling, having lost the entire prize of the plunder, they require the support of gambling in danger of war: but they are often carried away with such ardor, that when defeated in the things which they alone value highly, they surrender their weapons to a single throw of dice and surrender their own life to the power either of the victor or of the moneylender. Finally, it was decided that one of them, known to the Roman emperor for his loyalty, would pay the price of servitude that he had brought upon himself through such unfortunate circumstances, by enduring the tortures of an ordered death. Therefore, the moneylender also crushes the necks of the Chuni people, and he presses them onto the iron, oppressing the barbarians with the terror of his cruelty.
Caput XII.
On the collection of interest by moneylenders, and the various terms they use. Their money is compared to an echidna and other serpents; where the Greeks have said τόκους, it is explained.
40. For what is more foul than he who lends money today and demands it back tomorrow? And (Eccles. 20:16) he says, such a man is hateful. The offering may be pleasant, but the exaction is monstrous. Yet it is the very kindness of the offering that causes the cruelty of the exaction: he lends money, demands security, and hides it away in his storehouses. One sum of money is given by the lenders, but how many are demanded from the borrowers? How many terms have they made for themselves? A coin is given, it's called interest; a lot is spoken of, it's called principal; a debt is recorded, it's called borrowed money. This enormous curiosity of many principal sums effects a numerous exaction: it is called a bond, it is called an IOU, it demands securities, it takes pledges, it calls itself trust, it asserts an obligation, it proclaims interest, it praises the hundredth part.
41. Echidna is a certain moneylender's money, which produces such great evils. However, Echidna, fertile in suffering, tears apart her own bowels in childbirth. And in her maternal death, she teaches her offspring not to be degenerate towards their mother. Therefore, they begin to be serpents, they tear her apart with their bites. There, where the venom is born, it is first tested. But the money of the moneylender conceives, bears, nurtures all its evils, and itself grows more in its own offspring, more numerous in sad brood. Not less winding than a serpent, and gathering itself into a circle, in order to preserve its head: with the rest of its body, it lashes out, it only extends its head for wounds: with its huge coils it binds those it has seized, it kills with its head alone: its head remaining safe, even if the rest of its body has been torn apart, it revives.
42. There are also different times for snakes to come together and give birth: money, from the day the agreement is entered into, creeps with increasing interest, which does not know how to give birth; because it transfers more of its own pain to others. There the pains are like those of a woman in labor; hence the Greeks also called interest "τόκοι", because they seem to stimulate the pains of the debtor's soul giving birth. The first of the month comes, fate gives birth to the hundredth part: each month comes, interest is generated, the offspring of evil parents' evils. This is the generation of vipers. The hundredth grows, it seeks and is not released, it is applied to chance. It becomes a prophetic curse (Ps. 54:12), deceit with deceit, the offspring of the wicked seed worsens through usury. Therefore, it is no longer the beginning of the hundredth, but the sum, that is, not the hundredth of interest, but the interest of the hundredth.
Caput XIII.
Following the etymology of usury, it shows that usury itself is more fruitful than the very hares and any plants, and surpasses all other things with the greed of the moneylender: then it returns to the established comparison of usury with animals and plants.
43. I also believe that interest is derived from use, just as clothing is derived from use, and so patrimonies are divided by interest. The mournful wax represents the first letter. It gives birth to the voice of suffering: what good can come to you that begins with pain and obligation? They say that hares both generate and raise offspring, and they give birth continuously: interest is also generated and over-generated by these anaglyphic figures of usury, it is nourished and born, and having been born, it gives birth. The roots of trees are first planted in order to take hold: once they have taken hold, they begin to grow green, and then to sprout. But money planted with usury barely sprouts. Seeds burst forth in due season, animals give birth in due season: there is a time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal (Ecclesiastes 3:2-3). And further: a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away (Ibid., 6), as the Preacher says: money planted with usury is sown today, it fructifies tomorrow: it always bears fruit, and never perishes: it is always planted, and is hardly uprooted. He wants always to acquire, never to lose: never to keep his money, always to spend: never to heal, always to kill.
And because the book of Ecclesiastes by Solomon is a good teacher for all things, let us linger on it for a moment: The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear satisfied with hearing (Eccl. 1:8); neither is the lender satisfied with receiving, nor is his desire for counting money satisfied with hearing (Eccl. 1:8). And again: What has been is what will be (Ibid., 1:9); money always increases, greed knows no leisure, usury knows no holidays. All, he says, the torrents go into the sea, and the sea is not filled (cf. Ecclesiastes 1:7). That sea is a lender; it absorbs everyone's patrimony like waves, and itself does not know how to be satisfied. Yet many people use the sea for profit, but no one uses a lender except for expense: there is benefit for many there, but here there is shipwreck for all.
There are many living things that begin to reproduce quickly, but also quickly cease to reproduce: fate quickly generates and never ceases; indeed, when it receives the beginning of growth, it extends the increase infinitely. Then, everything that grows, when it reaches its own nature, form, measure, and magnitude, is free from further growth: but the money of lenders is always increasing with time, and it does not hold to the limit beyond the extent of maternal fate. Moreover, most animals, when they begin to generate offspring from what has arisen from them, as if their powers had become exhausted, lose the ability to reproduce: but the interest-bearing capital, when it has been equalized with the growing hundreds, renews its old age and multiplies its usual yields by addition.