We Have Got to Talk About Usury (Part XII): Luther On Why Pastors Must Preach Against Usury

The following post is the twelfth in a series on usury by the Rev. Vincent Shemwell. Rev. Shemwell serves as pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Johnson City, Tennessee. He graduated from Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne with the M.Div. in 2022, and received his STM from CTSFW in 2024, writing his thesis on Johann Georg Hamann. The previous installments can be found below:

Part I: Introduction
Part II: The Old Testament
Part III: The New Testament
Part IV: The Church Fathers—Clement of Alexandria through Hilary of Poitiers
Part V: The Church Fathers — The Cappadocians
Part VI: The Church Fathers — Church Councils and Ambrose
Part VII: The Church Fathers—Chrysostom through Leo the Great
Part VIII: Medieval Theologians
Part IX: The Medieval Church Continued—Councils, Canon Law, Dante, and Other Matters
Part X: Luther—His First Foray, in Translation
Part XI: The Strauss Affair and Luther’s Long Sermon

In the early 1520s, while still in his thirties, Luther had hoped that the civil authorities would abolish all usury and responsibly reform and regulate the purchase of rental income (Zinskauf), which so often produced the same deleterious effects as interest-bearing loans. He recognized that it remains the duty of the state to restrain such sinful practices and the mammonism they foster. By the late 1530s, however, then in his fifties, Luther had abandoned hope that this would ever be accomplished. Consequently, rather than striving any further to persuade civil leaders, he turned his attention to his fellow pastors, exhorting them to preach boldly against this sin, if for no other reason than for their own sake, that they might be found faithful on the day of judgment.

His words from a sermon on Matthew 23:25–26, delivered sometime between July and September of 1539, perfectly encapsulate his sentiments during this period (LW 68:198–200): “Usury and greed have become so common now that neither emperor nor king can do anything about it anymore. In the past people would sing: ‘The merchant has become a nobleman; he wears the badge of an order.’ In turn, however, the noblemen and princes have now become merchants, nothing but usurers. It has not been twenty years since we preached here that an interest rate of ten gulden on a hundred was called usury. Now the great lords take twenty or thirty gulden a year from a hundred, so for those who have to pay such high interest the capital always stays the same. Some even gouge out forty or sixty gulden from a hundred. May the devil help you! Even if you were to call upon the emperor and the princes for help, they cannot, because they themselves are stuck in this. Justice has been lost and corrupted…. Leipzig has fallen into the abyss of hell with its usury and greed…. No preaching will help here, and if the Last Day does not reform it, [our] cities will perish like Sodom and Gomorrah…. As a worm in an apple cleans out, devours, and totally ruins the apple, so also the cities cannot gain strength because of usury…. Leipzig and other cities are true dens of robbers…. So this preaching is now for us.”

In 1539, Luther found himself witnessing economic collapse on every side. A considerable population boom had intensified a scarcity of commodities already afflicting much of Germany, while successive crop failures and coin debasement only deepened the crisis. Conditions deteriorated to such an extent that, in Wittenberg, a shortage of bread sparked rioting in the marketplace. While more modern scholars have proposed various explanations for this economic turmoil, Luther placed the blame squarely on merchants, moneylenders, and princes. In his judgment, usury, price and currency manipulation, and unrestrained greed were the principal causes. By this point, he regarded the civil authorities as fully complicit in the unfolding economic calamity—one that, in his estimation, was driving countless souls into poverty and destitution.

Thus, at the very end of the year, Luther published his most impassioned work on the topic of usury, entitled: To Pastors, That They Should Preach Against Usury (LW 61:284–328, Kindle). At the start of the text, he explains what had transpired between the publication of Trade and Usury and 1539 (pg. 284): “I wrote against usury fifteen years ago, when it had already made such strong inroads that I could not hope for any correction. Since that time it has so increased that it now refuses to be a vice, sin, or disgrace and would like to pass itself off as pure virtue and honor, as though it were doing people a great charity and Christian service. What can help or aid now that shame has become honor and vice has become virtue? … [This] vile covetousness and usury have utterly destroyed [Germany]. Nevertheless, I implore all preachers and pastors for God’s sake not to keep quiet nor to cease preaching against usury, admonishing and warning the people. If we cannot curb usury (for that has now become impossible … for the entire secular government), we may nevertheless by our admonitions pluck a few of them from this Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:14). But if we must, with Lot, leave a few good friends to perish here through their own selfish will, at least we will not be left here nor by our silence make ourselves participants in their sin and punishment. Rather, we will, as much as possible, sound the cry that usury is not a virtue but a great sin and disgrace.”

Throughout the text, Luther gives his fellow pastors no choice: they must preach against usury, and consistently, even several times a year, for the sake of repentance and the salvation of those souls in their care. He begins with a very straightforward definition of usury (285): “If in the lending of money a greater amount or a better return is demanded or collected, that is condemned as usury under every code of law. Therefore, all those who collect 5, 6, or more percent on a monetary loan are usurers; they should judge themselves accordingly and be called idolatrous servants of greed or mammon (Matt. 6:24), and they cannot be saved unless they repent. The same should also be said of grain, barley, and other commodities: if a greater amount or better return is demanded for it, that is usury, goods which were stolen and robbed.” Understanding usury, Luther writes, “does not require a great, lofty intelligence,” since it is “a very simple text: namely, if anyone lends something and takes in return something above that or something better, that is usury.” Therefore, “if anyone lends and receives a greater amount or better compensation, he sins against God as a usurer” (288–89). And notice here that Luther primarily frames the sin as a form of idolatry, a sin against the first commandment. 

This is what pastors are called to preach (286): “That it is usury when anyone loans, no matter what he loans, and collects a greater amount or better compensation than was loaned.” Luther exhorts his brothers in the ministry (286–89): “Do not let this text be absent from the pulpit or forced out of it…. Do not be led astray by … objections, but stick to the text and say, ‘No matter who makes a loan, the text remains: Whoever lends and receives something [more] in return is a usurer.’ Do not abandon [this] text even if a hundred thousand objections are raised…. Preacher, be confident and urge from the pulpit [this] text, that taking a greater amount on a loan is usury…. Just make sure that you stand firm and unwavering on [this] text.” He then warns other pastors of the personal spiritual peril in neglecting to address this controversial issue. To avoid preaching against lending at interest, he cautions, is to risk becoming “Antinomians and through the sins of others going with the world to the devil” (293). Preaching against usury, then, is not only a pastoral responsibility but also a matter of spiritual self-preservation, so that one does not become complicit in this mortal sin. “I am writing these things to you pastors most of all, to remind you of your office. Aside from that, I have just about given up all hope in the situation. We can still save our consciences and not weigh ourselves down to hell by the sins of others” (300).

Luther further admonishes his audience of pastors not to be burdened by objections that are often little more than thinly veiled attempts to justify the sinful ways of the world. But “if you follow the world,” he writes,” you will dwell with it forever in the pit of hell” (286). The chief objection Luther addresses is the claim that moneylenders perform a valuable service and, therefore, should be permitted to profit from their trade. Luther, however, counters this argument with biting wit, observing that by the same logic, one could defend adultery—or perhaps even prostitution—since both participants in such acts arguably render a “service” to one another and could be seen as engaging in mutually beneficial “cooperation” (287–88). Of course, this “service” is contrary to God’s law. Accordingly, he implores his reader with fervent urgency (288): “You, the preacher, must speak about this and not be silent, but point out to the people clearly and distinctly that what is done against God’s Word and the law is not described as a service or good deed. For He says, ‘You shall serve God alone’ (Matt. 4:10). Anything that does not serve His Word or the law might well claim to be a service and good deed, but it is a service and good deed done to another god: the devil.”

Next, Luther again emphasizes that any gifts offered as charitable compensation for a loan must be entirely voluntary and may in no way constitute a condition or basis for the loan itself (288–89). Within this discussion, he revisits the issue of interesse, a form of compensation for loss or missed profit, and appears somewhat more receptive to it here than in his earlier writings (291). However, just a few pages later, he appeals to the example set forth in the Gospels, which, if sincerely followed, would effectively invalidate many justifications for interesse (293). Following the jurists of his time, he dismisses the unfounded claims of most as “fantastic interesse,” cases in which no actual loss or missed opportunity for gain can be substantiated, but are instead merely imagined. It appears that Luther regarded the majority of interesse claims as falling into this dubious category. Yet in instances where a genuine and demonstrable loss exists, he advises pastors not to concern themselves with the matter, but rather to leave it for the jurists to sort out.

He then turns his attention to the objection that usury is just the way of the world, something that can never be eradicated and must thus be permitted. To this, he responds (294–95): “They say that the world cannot be without usury. That is certainly true. There never will be, nor ever has been, any government in the world strict and severe enough to be able to restrain every sin. Even if a government were able to restrain every sin, yet original sin, the source of all sins, and the devil (of which the laws must needs be ignorant) will still remain and must always be restrained again, as much as possible. Therefore, the world cannot be without usury, without covetousness, without arrogance, without fornication, without adultery, without murder, without stealing, without blasphemy and sins of all sorts. Otherwise it would not be the world, and the world would have to be without the world, and the devil without the devil. But whether they are innocent in this, they will find out soon enough. The Lord says in Matthew 18:7: ‘Offenses must come, but woe to the man by whom offense comes!’ Usury must be, but woe to the usurers!” So, Luther concludes that even if usury cannot be restrained, princes and pastors “should nevertheless curb it, that is, punish the evil which has happened and deter future evil, insofar as possible” (295).

But Luther was acutely aware that the princes were failing in their responsibilities to intervene and abolish usury (301), which is why, by 1539, he increasingly relied on pastors to assume, in a spiritual capacity, the burden they had neglected. The urgency in Luther’s tone is unmistakable. He laments that “businessmen … have gobbled up almost all of Germany,” a consequence he views as inevitable for those lands which capitulate to the sin of usury (296). For Luther, this failure was particularly disgraceful for a Christian people, given that even “the pagans were able to judge from reason that a usurer is a fourfold thief and murderer … [who] sucks, robs, and steals his living from another person.” Yet, for whatever reason, “Christians hold [usurers] in such high esteem that [they] practically worship them for their money and do not notice the great mockery and disgrace [they] do in this way to the Christian name and to Christ Himself” (298–99). While his fellow Germans were effectively venerating usurers, Luther advocated for their execution, declaring that they ought to be “hung on the gallows and eaten up by ravens.” What Germany really needed, in Luther’s view, was their own prophet (299): “We Germans need a Nehemiah today, and if it cannot be otherwise, a Nehemiah must come, or Germany and all her princes, lords, lands, and people will be enslaved to the usurers. Over the last twenty years—indeed, the last ten years—usury has spread so much that any heart which sees but a little of it must be frightened. And the more time passes, the more dreadfully it grows, spreads, and devours without ceasing.”

He then delivers what is perhaps the most no-nonsense, uncompromising counsel in the entire work (301–2): “We preachers should not be idle, but be bishops, that is, [we should] watch and be alert (Acts 20:28, 31), for it concerns our salvation. First, we should confidently reprove and condemn usury from the pulpit, speaking the text carefully and proclaiming bluntly: ‘Whoever receives more or better compensation on a loan is a usurer and is condemned as a thief, robber, and murderer,’ as said above. Second, if you have certain knowledge of any such person, you should not give him the Sacrament nor the Absolution as long as he does not repent, or else you make yourself a participant in his usury and sin and go to the devil with him, even if you were as pure and holy as St. John the Baptist with respect to your own sin. St. Paul says to Timothy (1 Tim. 5:22): ‘Lay your hands on no one hastily, and do not make yourself a participant in the sins of others.’ Likewise, in Romans 1:32: ‘Not only are those who do such things worthy of death, but so are those who give approval to or take pleasure in them.’ Third, when [a usurer] dies, unless he has repented, you should leave him alone as a pagan and not bury him among Christians nor accompany him to the grave. If you do, you make yourself a participant in his sin, as stated above. Because he is a usurer and idolater in service to mammon, he is an unbeliever; cannot have neither forgiveness of sins, the grace of Christ, nor the communion of the saints; and is in no position to receive the same, but has condemned, cut off, and excommunicated himself as long as he does not acknowledge his sin and repent. These words may perhaps strike some people as harsh and even frighten some. They will sound terrifying to little usurers—I mean those who only take 5 or 6 percent. But there is no treatment too harsh for the great devourers of the world who are not content with any percentage they collect; for they have given themselves to mammon and the devil. Although we cry, they do not care. It is of these especially that I have said that they should be left to the devil both while alive and when dying, as in fact is their wish, and we should have no Christian fellowship with them.” To those who recoil or seethe at such severe admonitions, Luther responds that their anger is not actually directed at him, but at the Word of God itself, which is the true source of the accusation against them. Rather than direct their wrath outward, they should recognize the truth of the rebuke, turn inward, and repent. For, as Luther says, “I am not a pastor in order to go with everyone to the devil, but to bring everyone with me to God” (302).

Having issued a series of stern admonitions, Luther then turns to address some exceptional cases, for which he uses the term Notwucher (or Notwucherlin), “a little usury out of necessity” (303). He has in mind situations involving the elderly, widows, or orphans who inherit modest sums of money and depend on the interest generated from these funds for their basic survival. Individuals in these circumstances, he argues, should not be harshly punished for accepting small amounts of interest. Instead, Luther regards the limited toleration of these cases as “almost half a work of mercy for the needy who would otherwise have nothing,” noting that such interest-taking “does not especially harm others” (303). He even speculates whether these cases might be best understood as a form of genuine interesse, given the ignorance of those involved. In fact, canon law had long recognized similar situations under the designation miserabiles personae, granting certain privileges or exemptions to the poor on account of their vulnerability. Luther is careful to emphasize that such instances do not establish a general rule; rather, they are exceptions compelled by necessity. As he puts it, “necessity breaks iron.” In the same spirit, he offers an analogy (303–4): “He who takes bread from the bakery when he is not starving is a thief; [but] if he does it in the necessity of hunger, he acts justly.”

Having outlined a few exceptional cases, Luther returns to the objection that Christians are allowed to collect interest on the grounds that civil laws permit it. He had already tackled this in his Long Sermon, and here offers a more succinct response, stating that “being obedient to the laws of the emperor is not sufficient for heaven” (304). In the case of civil law, often sinful practices are “left unpunished in order to avoid a greater evil” (305). As Luther sees it, this was even the case with Moses and the certificate of divorce (Deut. 24:1–4), as well as the toleration of usury in dealings with foreigners (Deut. 23:20). Nevertheless, as he contends, these practices “Christ does not allow His Christians” (Matt. 19:8–9), since His law is “wholly pure and perfectly just,” able to “endure no usury or any evil thing”; and “where it is kept and there are Christians, there is certainly no usury,” for “a Christian can no more be a usurer than he can be a pagan or a Jew” (305–6).

For Luther, usury—“a terrifying thing” that “consumes the world”—is ultimately a manifestation of the insatiable human desire for wealth, as though one could carry his worldly possessions “beyond this world” (304). Yet, as Luther painstakingly demonstrates, such desire constitutes a direct rejection of the apostolic exhortation in 1 Timothy 6, where Paul urges believers to cultivate contentment, “for we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” Within this context, Paul clearly states that the love of money is, in fact, the root of all evil (1 Tim. 6:10). The antidote to this corrupt longing and distorted desire, in Luther’s estimation, lies in the counsel of Proverbs 19:17—the cornerstone of the patristic case against usury—namely, that one should only ever practice usury upon God, Who is happy to become our debtor and promises to repay handsomely in the next life all who have pity on the poor in this life (306). In other words, horizontally speaking, lending for profit is always sinful; it only becomes Christian when it is undertaken as an act of charity.

This is undoubtedly a daunting standard, which Luther readily acknowledges. Regardless, it is Christ’s standard. If we call ourselves Christians, we must follow Christ, even when it is incredibly difficult (to be sure, Luther himself admits that true Christians, who treat fellow Christians fairly, are rare; see 318–19). He writes (306–7): “[But] here you say, ‘If that is so, who will or can be a Christian?’ Answer: Whoever wishes to have salvation in the kingdom of heaven can certainly be a Christian. ‘All right, then, who can have such salvation?’ Answer: Whoever wishes to be a Christian can have such salvation. Christ will not adjust, bend, twist, or turn His Word according to us…. We must conform and submit to Him. The cubit must not be measured by the cloth, but the cloth by the cubit, or the measurement would be worthless. A weight must not be weighed by the merchandise, but the merchandise by the weight, or what good would that weight be?” According to Luther, Christians cannot be usurers and usurers cannot be Christian, for the two are mutually exclusive from the perspective of the Gospel. Rather, Christians must lend solely for charity’s sake, and not only to friends but also to enemies, and above all to the poor and needy. 

Unlike Christians, usurers are nothing but idolators, worshippers of mammon. Yet for Luther, not only do they worship another god, they even seek to be gods themselves: “Not only is mammon their god, they even try to use their mammon to be god of the whole world and honored by all,” for it is in their very nature to “want to be the god of another” (311–13). Luther’s rhetoric here turns particularly dark and provocative when he suggests that these mammonists, who become rich off the economic oppression of others, should just “kill themselves” (314). Though undeniably jarring, this hyperbolic severity underscores the depth of Luther’s moral outrage. Read charitably, his provocation invites a sobering question for those who may be offended by it: is it not equally disturbing—perhaps even more so—that usurers regard the desperate need of already “poor, ruined, wretched people” as an opportunity for profit (316)? After all, what could be more antithetical to the Gospel? To seek divinity through domination and gain through others’ need is the precise inversion of Christ’s command: not to be the god of all, but the servant of all (314).

Luther subsequently embarks on an extended and vehement campaign against usurers, whom he likens to “their father the devil” (John 8:44). He condemns them for “rejoic[ing] and delight[ing] in the fact that they themselves are rich in money and others are poor, and that they are the lords of money and others must worship them,” drawing a parallel to Satan, who, “when he was in heaven, also wished by usury and covetousness to have divinity in addition to his lofty, angelic wealth, beauty, and glory in which he was created above all angels” (314–15). Yet, Luther warns, “he fell and so forfeited both the interest and the principal.” So too, Luther insists, will usurers eventually fall. Since they desire, like Satan, to be the god of all, he declares that “on earth there is no greater enemy of man (after the devil) than a miser and usurer” (315). Unlike the Turks, who are capable of some mercy, the usurer is utterly merciless. He “would make the whole world perish in hunger, thirst, misery, and distress insofar as he is able, that he might have all things to himself alone and make everyone get everything from him as from god and be his eternal slave,” a notion that “fills his heart with laughter and invigorates his blood.”

And “because secular lords are remiss and lazy in [dealing with usurers], or in part are too weak to prevent this tragedy,” Luther maintains that “pastors should teach people and train them to regard usurers and misers as devils incarnate, to bless themselves (i.e., make the sign of the cross over themselves) in their presence if ever they see or hear them, and to learn to think of Turks, Tartars, and pagans as nothing but angels compared to a usurer” (316). Furthermore, “teachers should teach and train boys and young men to recoil in fear and say, ‘Shame on you!’ at the name of a usurer as at the worst devil,” for in truth, “a usurer is a great, enormous monster, like a werewolf, that lays waste to everything.”

And once again, Luther unambiguously asserts that usurers are not Christians at all and therefore must never be admitted to Holy Communion, but rather excommunicated, for a faithful pastor’s conscience does not possibly permit him to do otherwise (320). For Luther, usury is nothing but idolatry and a person cannot be saved in this sin. He writes plainly (323): “Christ says in Matthew 6:24: ‘You cannot at the same time serve God and mammon.’ And St. Paul (1 Cor. 6:9–10): ‘Servants of idols, or idolaters, cannot inherit the kingdom of God.’ He calls covetousness ‘idolatry,’ as everyone knows full well, God be praised (Col. 3:5). But if a servant of mammon cannot be saved, though he is nothing more than a covetous person, and his life is called sheer idolatry, what will become of a usurer? Whose servant can he be said to be if the covetous person is called the devil’s servant?” Indeed, “among Christians there can be no room for usury.”

Very briefly, Luther takes up a matter that would become much more contentious after his death: lending at interest not to the poor but to the rich. In Luther’s view, those who practice usury only upon the wealthy are still usurers—“villains,” he calls them—who are just as much “servant[s] of the devil and enem[ies] of God and all men” (323–24). Justifying usury on the grounds that it is not directly exacted from the poor is just an “excuse” for Luther, since the poor are still those who suffer once the cost of borrowing at interest is passed on to the consumer. “Who is chiefly affected when you practice usury? Is it not the poor alone who are wholly and completely affected?” Even in cases where the poor might not appear to be harmed directly, this kind of usury is still idolatrous, he argues. Even if a usurer manages to keep the seventh commandment with respect to the poor, he has nonetheless failed to keep the very first, having placed his trust not in God but in mammon, and having submitted himself to the laws of mammon and the world rather than to those of God.

Given the severity of the situation—a matter of eternal life and death—Luther presents the church with no alternative but to preach against the mortal sin of usury regularly. Naturally, this is never an easy task though. Luther makes it clear that when pastors preach against this pervasive sin they will likely be treated just as the prophets were, and as Jesus was (322–23). But this, he says, is right and necessary, for pastors in particular are called to suffer for the sake of the truth. “Just be a true Christian, suffering for God’s sake” and “a good preacher … perform your office diligently and faithfully. Let the devil worry where to find the wood from which to make a cross for you; let the world worry where to find a branch from which to make a switch for your hide.”

Perhaps no one will listen, but this changes nothing. Even in the face of rejection and disregard, pastors must continue to preach faithfully for the sake of their own consciences. Luther deeply felt the futility of such preaching amid the state of things in 1539. He writes, full of lament but with unwavering resolve (325): “No preaching is of use any more. [People] have driven themselves deaf, blind, and senseless with their usury and no longer hear, see, or feel a thing. We preachers only preach so that we are acquitted on that day and at their end when they must go to hell. Then they will be ‘without excuse’ (Rom. 1:20); otherwise they would fault us as their ministers for not admonishing, reproving, and teaching them, and thus we would have to go to the devil with them because of the sins of others. No, let them go to hell alone. We have done our part. We have carefully reproved and taught them in keeping with our office. Their blood and sin be and remain on their own heads and not on us.” If sinners should stubbornly persist in the sin of usury, then “very well, let them go on,” Luther advises (327). “Just see to it personally, pastor … that you do not make yourself a participant in their sins. Let them die like dogs and devour the devil with body and soul. Do not let them come to the Sacrament, to Baptism, nor to any Christian fellowship.”

At the end of the text, Luther returns—with a hint of irony and, as I suspect, under the influence of the church fathers—to the example of Proverbs 19:17, which should guide all dealings with temporal goods. I quote this crucial section in full (325–27): “Finally, lest the misers and usurers imagine that we wish to put a stop to their activity too severely and utterly destroy them, we will give them a good, trusty piece of advice so that they can practice their covetousness and usury until they are full and more than full. And a preacher can say that he knows how to point to a rich Lord Who is eager to suffer usury, Who seeks and calls out where the covetous and usurers are, that they may come confidently, practice their covetousness and usury as much and as highly as they can, and that He will pay them plenty in usury—not only 10 or 20 percent, but a hundred per gulden and a thousand per hundred. He has an unlimited store of silver and gold mountains so that He can easily and surely do it. This Lord is called God, the Maker of heaven and earth, and in the Gospel He has His dear Son offer us (Luke 6:38): ‘Give and lend, and it shall be given to you, not only the same, but much more, namely, a full measure, a measure shaken together, a measure pressed down, a measure overflowing.’ So bring forth sack and purse, bowl and basin. Do you hear? So much will be given back to you that all sacks and bowls will be too few and too little for you, and they will be so filled up that no more can go into them, but they must overflow. And again (Matt. 19:29): ‘Whoever gives up a field or house for My sake will receive a hundred times as much, and eternal life as well.’ Why are covetousness and usury not practiced here where covetousness and usury can be filled and satisfied? Why do they instead seek to satisfy their insatiable covetousness and usury among the men who can give little back and do not satisfy their greed, but only provoke it and increase the thirst? Is it not the devil himself that people do not profit off this rich Lord by covetousness and usury—this Lord Who offers to become every man’s debtor, tributary, and vassal and is glad to pay usury, when no one will or can? He Himself even calls it usury and desires such usurers in Proverbs 19:17: ‘Whoever gives or does well to the poor lends with usury to the Lord.’ Where are you covetous, insatiable usurers? Come with your usury and take life and all abundance here and hereafter forever, at no expense to your neighbor—you who by your accursed usury become murderers of men, thieves, villains, and the worst, most hateful, most despised people on earth, for which you lose body and soul forever, and who cannot keep to the third generation any property you have gained by usury, as stated above. But here you can become sheer ‘holy usurers’ who are dear and precious to God and all angels and men; moreover, you can never lose this usury. Consider, then, whether the children of men are not out of their mind and possessed by every devil, that they should despise such a rich Lord with His rich, everlasting offer of usury and turn instead to the harmful, damned, murderous, and thievish sort of usury, which cannot last but will send them to hell? Therefore, a usurer or miser is in truth not a real human, nor does he sin like a human. He must be more of a werewolf than all tyrants, murderers, and robbers, practically as wicked as the devil himself. He enjoys common protection and peace as if he were not an enemy but a friend and fellow citizen, and yet robs and murders more terribly than any enemy or arsonist. And if highway robbers, murderers, or raiders are broken on the wheel or beheaded, how much more should all usurers be broken on the wheel and tortured, and all skinflints banished, cursed, and beheaded?”

In closing, Luther remarks that “God is more opposed to usury than any man suspects,” a statement that likely holds as true today as it did in his time (327). He also clarifies that his preceding discussion dealt only with interest-bearing loans, not Zinskauf (328). Luther does make some allowances for the purchase of rental income, which he does not classify as a loan in the strict sense, whenever both parties are in need, the risk is shared mutually, and the rates are not extortionately high (i.e., not above six percent).

Luther is extraordinarily exhaustive in this work, and I encourage you, dear reader, to engage with the entire text in the near future. God willing, in the next part of our series, we will examine several additional comments by Luther on usury that are scattered across a handful of locations: publications, table talks, a hymn. Moreover, we will cover a few persistent misconceptions regarding Luther’s view—misunderstandings that have endured for far too long.

Stay tuned.