We Have Got to Talk About Usury (Part IV): The Church Fathers—Clement of Alexandria through Hilary of Poitiers (c. 150–386 AD)
The following post is the fourth 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 post can be found here.
For the next several parts of our series we will be discussing the early church fathers, whose collective witness on the question of usury is both extensive and strikingly unified. Given the breadth of their engagement with this topic, our survey must necessarily be selective. To illustrate the remarkable consistency with which these theologians opposed usury, I will present brief representative excerpts from a curated group of fifteen influential figures: Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactantius, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Hilary of Poitiers, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrose, Jerome, Chrysostom, Augustine, and Leo the Great. In the present part, we will treat Clement through Hilary; in the next, we will turn to the Cappadocians, followed by the Council of Nicaea, Ambrose, and the remaining fathers thereafter. Due to the constraints of space, only a limited account of each father’s writings can be offered here. But I strongly encourage the reader to seek out the original texts and explore them more fully, for they reward a closer engagement.
Before we begin our survey, it should be noted that throughout the patristic period, the charging of interest was legally permitted within the civil sphere. It was regulated, but still widely practiced. In fact, for as long as people have been lending money or goods, they have no doubt been doing so at interest, in some way, shape, or form. Nevertheless, during the historical period under consideration, usury was consistently and emphatically condemned as a moral evil.
And indeed, this was the case even before the fathers, and before the birth of Christ. For instance, Cicero (106–43 BC) famously said (On Duties II.89): “If you are asking about usury, then you are ultimately asking about killing a man.”
And long before him, Aristotle (384–322 BC) wrote (Politics I.10): “It is entirely reasonable that usury is the most hated way of acquiring wealth, because it derives gain from money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money came into being for the purpose of exchange, not to increase by itself through interest (from which it also gets its name: for the offspring resembles the parent, and interest is money born from money); therefore, of all means of making profit, this one is the most contrary to nature.”
The church fathers were not breaking new ground here. However, their reasons for opposing usury were not be limited to natural law. Their reasons were foremost biblical.
Let us begin with the earliest father to explicitly address usury in texts still available to us, Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215 AD). Clement discusses usury in both the Pædagogus and the Stromata. In the former, quoting Ezekiel 18 and presenting this passage as a prophetic message about the Christian life, he writes:
“Through Ezekiel, the Christian life is set forth in these commandments: ‘The soul who sins shall die. But the man who is righteous, who does good works, who does not eat upon the mountains, who does not lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, who does not defile his neighbor’s wife, who does not approach a woman during her impurity, who does not oppress a man, who restores to the debtor his pledge, who does not commit robbery by violence, who gives his bread to the hungry, who clothes the naked, who does not exact usury or take any increase, who turns away his hand from injustice, who executes true judgment between a man and his neighbor, and who walks in My statues and keeps My judgments faithfully—this is a righteous man; and he shall surely live, says the Lord.’ These words contain a model for how Christians are to live and they serve as a worthy exhortation to the blessed life, which is the reward of a life of righteousness, eternal life.” (Paedagogus I.10)
For Clement, Ezekiel 18 is clearly about moral law. Therefore, he argues, the condemnation found therein still applies to the Christian, as curb, mirror, and guide.
In his Stromata, he comments on the universality of this prohibition, paraphrasing the Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BC–50 AD), who makes a similar case in the fourteenth section of his On the Virtues. Clement writes:
“God’s law forbids lending at interest to a brother. By ‘brother’ it means not only one born of the same parents, but one of the same tribe or faith, or one who participates in the same Logos. The law does not deem it right to collect interest on a loan. Instead, it commands lending freely to those in need.” (Stromata II.18)
Contemporaneous with Clement, Tertullian (c. 155–220) likewise issued a firm condemnation of lending at interest. The heretic Marcion (c. 85–160) had sought to divorce the Old Testament from the New Testament (and greatly limited his New Testament canon). In response to this, Tertullian labored to show the continuity between the two. Against Marcion’s heresy, Tertullian demonstrated how the law, in this case, the prohibition in Ezekiel 18, functioned as a sort of propaedeutic to the Gospel. He explains:
“This law in Ezekiel served to uproot the fruit of interest, so that one could more easily train a man to forsake the principal as well, the interest of which he had already learned to relinquish. Indeed, this was the purpose of the law: to serve the Gospel. It gradually instructed the faith of those still in the infancy of benevolence, so as to bring them to the perfect light of Christian discipline.” (Against Marcion IV.17)
For Tertullian, the Old Testament prohibition against usury prepared man for the discipline later given by Christ in Luke 6. The Israelites were forbidden to charge interest on their brothers in order to acclimate them to lending for the sake of help rather than profit, so that they would be prepared for Christ’s command to lend even at a loss for the sake of love. Christ’s commands do not abolish the moral commands in the Old Testament, but rather, in many instances, they extend and deepen them, calling the believer to an even higher standard of righteousness.
Sadly, later in his life, Tertullian dabbled in the heresy of Montanism. Yet even in his Montanist days, he defending the biblical prohibition against usury. Jerome records in his On Illustrious Men that Apollonius the Apologist condemned the Montanists for their practicing usury, but he notes that Tertullian vehemently denied this accusation in a defense of Montanists now lost to history.
Born half a century after Clement and Tertullian, Cyprian (c. 200–258), bishop of Carthage, continued the tradition of interpreting the condemnation of usury in Ezekiel 18 as moral law. He also cited Psalm 15 and Deuteronomy 23 as containing this same moral prohibition. In the twenty-eighth chapter of the third book of his Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews, Cyprian lists all three texts as justification for why Christians may not lend at interest.
Moreover, in his De lapsis (VI), Cyprian reports the state of the church in the immediate aftermath of the Decian persecution, writing that “not a few bishops” had forsaken their ministry “for secular business” and resorted to “increasing their gains by multiplying usuries,” all the while their “brethren in the church starved.” Even though Christians condemned usury, it did not stop some self-proclaimed Christians from lending at interest and acting as extortioners. Unfortunately, the same is true for most prohibitions against iniquitous deeds, then and now.
Nearly half a century after Cyprian’s death, Lactantius, advisor to Constantine the Great and a lesser-known church father, wrote an apologetic text entitled The Divine Institutes, which was aimed at refuting and converting pagans to Christianity. This work was likely the first comprehensive defense of Christian theology in Latin. Years later, Lactantius provided an Epitome of this major work, dedicated to the Latin poet Pentadius. In it, Lactantius clearly states:
“A follower of God and of truth ... will not lend his money at interest, for usury entails profiting from the misfortune of others; nor will he refuse to lend, should necessity force anyone to borrow.” (Epitome LXIV)
As we discussed in the previous part of this series, usury is condemned in Scripture precisely because it involves profiting from another’s harm, misfortune, or loss. The heading of the chapter in which Lactantius reaffirms this biblical prohibition reads: “That the Passions Must be Tamed and Forbidden Things Avoided.” It is a feature of fallen human nature to seek personal gain from the suffering of others. God’s law, however, serves to restrain such disordered passions and to redirect the heart away from what is forbidden. This is not merely a ceremonial or civil matter, but a fundamentally moral one. Or so thought Lactantius.
Living in the century following Cyprian and enjoying far greater renown than Lactantius, Athanasius (c. 297–373) also saw the Old Testament prohibition against usury as morally binding upon the Christian. And as with Cyprian, Athanasius pointed not only to Ezekiel 18 but to Psalm 15 as well. In commenting on the fifteenth psalm, Athanasius gleans a list of ten commands that must be observed for the sake of eternal life, the ninth of which forbids lending at interest. He writes:
“In this psalm, we are taught by what means we shall attain a blessed end. First, if we walk the blameless way—which is Christ; next, if we work righteousness; third, if we make the heart a dwelling place of truth; fourth, if we do not acquire a deceitful tongue; fifth, if we refrain from doing evil to our neighbor; sixth, if we refrain from reproaching our neighbor arrogantly; seventh, if we show no partiality, despising the rich evildoer and honoring the poor man who is good; eighth, if we keep our oaths; ninth, if we flee from usury; tenth—which is the consummation of every good—if we avoid taking bribes. Whoever learns to fulfill these will have the gift of good things unshaken.” (Expositiones in Psalmos XIV vv. 2–5).
Writing around the same time as Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 313–386) addressed usury in the context of his catechetical instruction. In the fourth of his twenty-three Catechetical Lectures —the series for which he is best known and which were delivered to catechumens in the Martyrium at Jerusalem, constructed under the patronage of Constantine the Great—Cyril exhorts his hearers to devote themselves to the study of Scripture, embracing both the Old and New Testaments, the law and the Gospel alike. In closing, he then warns them about satanic arts and other iniquities clearly proscribed in Scripture:
“Flee from every diabolical work, and listen not to the apostate serpent, who abandoned his good nature of his own free choice, who can only persuade those who are willing, but can force no one. And give heed neither to any observations of the stars, nor auguries, nor omens, nor the fabulous divinations of the Greeks. Witchcraft, enchantment, and the most wicked practices of necromancy, do not even give these a hearing. Stand aloof from every kind of intemperance, giving yourself neither to gluttony nor to the love of pleasure, rising above all covetousness and usury … so that you may enjoy the one salvation which flows from baptism, and having been thus enrolled in the heavenly hosts by God and the Father, that you may also be counted worthy of the heavenly crown, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to Whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (Catechetical Lectures IV.37)
It is interesting how Cyril appears to associate usury with witchcraft and idolatry. Arguably, the same association is already made in Ezekiel 18. And again, at least in the minds of some early LCMS pastors and theologians, this association in Ezekiel 18, highlighted by Ambrose as well, has great significance (see Die Wucherfrage: Protokoll der Verhandlungen der deutschen ev. luth. Gemeinde U.A.C. zu St. Louis, Mo., über diese Frage (1869), 86). After all, one cannot serve both God and mammon.
In this same century, Hilary of Poitiers (c. 315–367), known as the “Athanasius of the West” for his equally fierce opposition to Arianism, likewise followed Athanasius in his location of the chief prohibition against usury in Psalm 15. Commenting on the fifth verse of this psalm, he says of its “heavenly admonition”:
“What could be more intolerable than this: that you should give aid to one in need in such a way that he becomes poorer and even more needy, and that, when you ought to bring relief to the misery of the poor, you instead increase it? If you are a Christian, what reward can you expect from God, you who do not seek to help men but to profit from their misfortune and harm? If you are a Christian, why do you scheme to make your idle money bear a return, and make your brother’s poverty—he for whom Christ died—the source of your enrichment? … Remember that the one whom you charge interest is a needy and poor man, for whose sake Christ Himself chose to become needy and poor. Therefore, whether you inflict harm or render aid to the poor man, know that you are doing it to Christ.” (Tractatus super Psalmos XIV.15)
In the very same section of his commentary on this psalm, Hilary further refers to lending at interest as a “deceptive kindness, a fraudulent generosity, and a deleterious benevolence.”
The Cappadocians took up this theme of usury as a form of inhumanity cloaked in the guise of philanthropy and denounced it with penetrating moral and theological clarity in their sermons. With the possible exception of Ambrose, no other fathers spoke out against usury with such frequency and vigor as Basil and the two Gregorys. God willing, we will get to them next time.
Stay tuned.