We Have Got to Talk About Usury (Part VI): The Church Fathers—Church Councils and Ambrose
St. Ambrose of Milan, Nürnberg, Pfarrkirche St. Lorenz (c. 1477). Photo: Jean Jeras, CVMA Freiburg, CC BY-NC 4.0
The following post is the sixth 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
As I mentioned in the Introduction to this series, the seventeen-hundredth anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea served, in part, as the impetus for initiating this conversation about usury. Nicaea holds particular significance as the first ecumenical council to issue an explicit condemnation of the practice. Yet this prohibition against lending at interest was not confined to Nicaea alone; it appears in at least seven other councils and synods spanning the fourth to the seventh centuries. Before continuing with our exploration of the church fathers, it is worth pausing here to list these councils and synods, in chronological order, along with the specific canons in which usury was formally condemned.
Synod of Elvira (c. 305), Canon 20: “If any of the clergy is discovered to have received usury, it has been decided that he is to be defrocked. If any layman is also proven to have received usury, and, once corrected, promises that he will cease and will not demand it any further, it has been decided that pardon is to be granted. But if he persists in that iniquity, he is to be excommunicated from the church.”
First Council of Nicaea (325), Canon 17: “Since many of those enrolled in the clergy, pursuing greed and shameful gain, forget the Holy Scripture which says: ‘He has not put out his money at interest’ (Psalm 15:5), and while lending money demand a hundredth as interest, this holy and great synod has judged it just that, if anyone should be found after this decree to take any interest from a loan, or to pursue the matter in some other way, or to demand one and a half times the original amount, or to devise anything else whatsoever for the sake of shameful gain, he is to be defrocked and his name stricken from the list.”
Synod of Carthage (c. 348), Canon 13: “Bishop Abundantius said: ‘At our provincial assembly, it was forbidden for clerics to engage in usury. This ought to be reaffirmed here.’ Gratus replied: ‘Proposals that are either too vague or too general should indeed be examined and clearly defined by us. But what the Holy Scripture has already so plainly prescribed needs no new enactment; it only needs to be carried out faithfully. What is already blameworthy in laymen must be even more strongly rejected in clerics.’ ‘None,’ said the bishops, ‘shall go unpunished who act against the prophets and the Gospel.’”
Council of Laodicea (c. 363), Canon 4: “Clerics shall not practice usury, nor take interest or demand a portion exceeding the amount loaned.”
Council of Carthage (419), Canon 16: “That all the clergy should abstain from lending at interest.”
Council of Tours (461), Canon 13: “A cleric who engages in any kind of trade shall not take interest, according to the teaching of the fathers and according to the commandments of Scripture. For whoever repeatedly departs from the commandments of God cannot be saved.”
Third Council of Constantinople (680), Canon 10: “A bishop, presbyter, or deacon who takes usury or interest shall lay down his office or be removed from it.”
Council in Trullo (692), Canon 10: “A bishop, presbyter, or deacon who receives usury, or what is called interest, let him desist or be immediately defrocked.”
As I also noted in the Introduction, usury was initially explicitly forbidden only to the clergy. Over time, however, this prohibition was extended to encompass all members of the church. Already at the Synod of Elvira, laymen were included under the ban. Yet it was not until the pontificate of Pope Leo the Great—notably in his decree Nec hoc quoque (c. 443)—that the interdiction was applied universally to all Christians by papal authority.
Moreover, it is significant that these repeated conciliar and papal decrees spanning over four centuries arguably attest to the church’s sustained struggle with this issue from its earliest centuries. The battle was ongoing; usury was condemned again and again, yet Christians, including members of the clergy, persisted in its perverse practice. Over time, as the empire became increasingly Christianized, additional civil laws were enacted to curb usury, yet the practice endured among believers for quite some time. In my view, the situation is not markedly different today. The fight against usury may well remain a losing battle. For as Luther observed: “They say that the world cannot be without usury. This is certainly true…. Usury must be, but woe to the usurers!” (To Pastors, LW 61:294). And yet, what sets the church of previous ages apart is that, for roughly nineteen hundred years, she at least continued the fight.
In the patristic age, perhaps no one waged this fight more vigorously than Ambrose (c. 339–397), bishop of Milan and mentor to Augustine. Throughout his life, Ambrose addressed the subject regularly, with his earliest and most comprehensive assault appearing in De Tobia, a lengthy treatise wholly devoted to condemning the evils of usury and avarice. This work forms part of a trilogy directed against the foremost vices of his age, the other two being De Nabuthae (against covetousness and luxury) and De Helia et Ieiunio (against intemperance). De Tobia was developed from a series of sermons delivered by Ambrose to his congregation in Milan, using the apocryphal Tobit 4:5–11, on the virtue of almsgiving, as a seeming point of departure. From this foundation, Ambrose launches into an extended polemic against usury, summarizing the patristic tradition that preceded him while forcefully advancing the moral argument against what he regarded as one of the gravest of sins. I will provide some representative excerpts, with little commentary.
Ambrose, in reflecting on the very nature of usury, writes (§16): “The usurer’s money cannot remain long in one place, being accustomed to circulate through many hands. It will not rest in a single purse; it insists on being turned over and counted. It demands use, so that it might yield usury. It is like a wave of the sea, not a fruit borne of labor. Money is never still; it surges forward as though hurled against a rock, striking the breast of the debtor, then recoiling to the hand from which it came. It comes with a murmur and recedes with a groan. Yet the sea, at times, lies calm when the winds are still; but the wave of interest, on the other hand, is always in motion. It overwhelms the shipwrecked, strips the naked, plunders the clothed, and abandons the unburied. For in seeking money, one suffers shipwreck. On one side, Charybdis roars; on the other, the Sirens—who, as the fables tell, with the allure of their appearance and the sweetness of their song, robbed those who drew near of all hope and desire to return home—lure the soul toward destruction.”
He further reflects on the depravity of the usurer, who demands his gain even after the death of his debtor (§36): “How often have I seen the dead held as collateral by usurers and denied burial while interest continued to be exacted! … Even the prison releases wrongdoers after death, yet you still cage them; the deceased is freed from the severity of the law, yet you hold him fast. There is scarcely a difference between interment and interest, hardly a distinction between death and debt.”
Lest anyone remain unclear concerning the full scope of the biblical definition of usury, particularly those who attempt to circumvent the law through cunning practices that merely conceal interest, he offers the following explanation (§49): “And because men, seeking to evade the precepts of the law, refrain from demanding interest directly when lending money to merchants, yet exact its equivalent through goods received in return, let them hear what the law declares: ‘You shall not charge interest to your brother—interest on money or food or anything that is lent out at interest’ (Deuteronomy 23:19). Such cunning conduct on the part of the usurer is not the fulfillment of the law, but its evasion and deceit. And do you imagine yourself pious because you receive, as it were, a loan in kind from the merchant? In doing so, he manipulates the price of his goods in order to pay you interest. You are the cause of this fraud; you are his accomplice. Whatever he gains by deceit becomes your profit. Food is usury, clothing is usury, and whatever demanded that exceeds the amount borrowed is usury. Call it what you will, it remains usury. If it is lawful, why disguise it? And if unlawful, why pursue it?”
Ambrose likewise develops the theme first introduced by Hilary of Poitiers and subsequently fleshed out by the Cappadocians that usury is a form of inhumanity cloaked in the guise of philanthropy. He writes (§11): “Such, O wealthy men, is the nature of your ‘benevolence’: you give little, yet demand much. Such is your ‘humanity,’ that even in aiding, you plunder. The poor man becomes a source of profit to you…. And you call yourselves merciful while actively enslaving the one you have merely freed from another’s yoke! He who lacks even the basic necessities must pay you usury. What could be more terrible? He seeks medicine, and you give him poison; he pleads for bread, and you offer him the sword; he asks for liberty, and you impose bondage; he prays for deliverance, and you tighten the noose around his neck.”
Ambrose then reflects on the heartbreaking severity of the borrower’s plight, as well as that of his progeny (§28–29): “O how many have been made wretched by the wealth of others! ‘And now why take the road to Egypt to drink the waters of Sihor?’ He says (Jeremiah 2:18). Why, I say, should you drink from the cup of the usurer? ‘Many,’ it is said, ‘have borrowed for a time, met their needs, and repaid the loan without great suffering.’ But how many, crushed by interest, have simply hanged themselves? You consider the former, but do not account for the latter. You remember those who escaped your slavery, but forget those who perished. You tally the money returned, but not the nooses sought—nooses desired by those who, too proud to endure disgrace and too feeble to bear injustice, chose death over the shame of so vile an accusation, fearing dishonor in life more than torment in death. I have witnessed a pitiable scene: children led away to be sold for their father’s debt, made heirs not of his possessions but of his misfortune, while the creditor, unashamed by such monstrous cruelty, persists, demands, and forces the sale. Such is the inhumanity of the usurer, and such the folly of the debtor: from the very children to whom he leaves no inheritance, he robs even their freedom; he leaves not the blessing of a will, but the curse of a written obligation—an obligation of debt in place of a legacy! What can it mean when a father, having committed no impious offense, writes a curse against his children? What harsher curse or more grievous slavery could there be? And often, it is the peculiar mercy of death that the father does not live to behold the profound miseries of his children.”
Later in the text, in the context of discussing the debt we have all inherited from Adam on account of the devil, Ambrose contemplates the profound contrast between the usurer’s sin and the Lord’s mercy (§34–35): “Who, then, is the usurer of sin if not the devil himself, he from whom Eve, by borrowing sin, incurred a debt that burdened all of mankind with the usury of a guilty inheritance? Like a wicked usurer, he held the bond of obligation, which the Lord would later blot out with His own blood. For that which had been inscribed in characters of death had to be destroyed by death. Thus, the devil stands as a true usurer. Hence, he showed his riches to the Savior, saying, ‘All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me’ (Matthew 4:9). Yet the Lord—the payer of the debt—owed him nothing. Indeed, He could say, ‘The prince of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me’ (John 14:30). Though He owed nothing, He paid for all, as He Himself testifies: ‘Then did I restore that which I did not take’ (Psalm 69:4). But how different is the wickedness of the prince of this world! The usurer lays a mortgage upon a man’s very head; he holds the man’s signature, calculates his capital, and demands his hundredth. O what a bitter word from a sweet one! The Lord rescued the hundredth sheep, the hundredth of salvation; this, rather, is the hundredth of death. The good earth yields a hundredfold in blessing, but this yields in total ruin. ‘Woe to those who call bitter sweet, and sweet bitter!’ (Isaiah 5:20) What is more bitter than usury? What sweeter than grace? By that very word, ‘hundredth,’ should they not be reminded of the Redeemer, Who came to save the hundredth sheep, not to destroy it? Who is a more ruthless oppressor? And indeed, this is a bitter word. Know well, then, who this exactor is who demands the last farthing and still dares to call himself a creditor, committing fraud even under that name, like one who smears the rim of a poisoned cup with honey, that death may be hidden beneath a pleasant scent, and the sweetened edge of the cup conceal the fatal deceit within.”
Ambrose also tackles what the ancients called anatocism (ἀνατοκισμός; ἀνα, indicating repetition, and τοκισμός, from τόκος, meaning “interest”)—what we now, with due lament, refer to as compound interest—writing (§42): “Among serpents, there are appointed times for mating and for bearing young; but money lent at interest, from the very day the contract is signed, begins to creep with ever-increasing usury. It knows nothing of giving birth itself, for it shifts the burden of pain onto others. ‘There were pains as of a woman in labor’ (John 16:21). For this reason, the Greeks have called interest ‘offspring’ (τόκος) because it seems to awaken in the debtor the anguish of childbirth. The first of the month arrives: the capital brings forth its hundredth. With each new month, interest is born, an evil offspring of evil parents. This is the brood of vipers. The hundredth accrues; it is demanded but unpaid; it is then added back to the principal. Thus is fulfilled the prophet’s curse: ‘Deceit upon deceit’ (Jeremiah 9:6)—for usury is a worse offspring of an already wicked seed. And so it ceases to be mere interest; it becomes principal; in other words, not simply a hundredth of interest, but interest upon the hundredth.”
Ambrose proceeds to explain the prohibition against lending at interest in the Old Testament, countering objections and carefully delineating its application and parameters (§51–52): “But perhaps you will object that Scripture says, ‘To the foreigner you may charge interest,’ and neglect what the Gospel, which is fuller, teaches. Let us set that aside for now and examine the words of the law itself. ‘To your brother,’ it says, ‘you shall not charge interest; but you may exact it of the foreigner.’ Who, then, is the foreigner, if not Amalek, or the Amorite—if not the enemy? ‘There,’ it says, ‘demand usury.’ Upon him whom you rightly desire to harm, against whom weapons are lawfully wielded, usury is lawfully imposed. From him whom you cannot easily conquer in war, you can swiftly take vengeance with interest. Exact usury from him whom it would be no crime to kill. He fights without a sword who demands usury; he avenges himself upon an enemy without a blade who becomes a usurious exactor of his foe. Therefore, where there is the right of war, there is also the right of usury. But every nation which is united in the faith or under the law of Rome is your brother. ‘I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly, I will praise You’ (Psalm 22:22). And finally, even in Leviticus, the law clearly forbids demanding interest from a brother. Thus it is written: ‘And your brother shall live with you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor lend him your food at a profit.’ In this divine ruling, all increase of capital is universally excluded. Therefore, David pronounced blessed—and worthy of dwelling in God’s presence—the one who ‘has not put out his money at usury’ (Psalm 15:5). If, then, he who refrains from usury is called blessed, surely, he who gives in to usury is accursed. Why, then, would you choose a curse rather than a blessing? You may be blessed, if you will it; you may be just. For according to Ezekiel, a just man is one who ‘restores the pledge to the debtor, does not exact usury, does not take an increase, and withdraws his hand from iniquity; he shall live, says the Lord.’ But he who ‘has not restored the pledge, has lifted his eyes to idols, committed abomination, exacted usury and taken an increase, he shall not live; he has done all these abominations; he shall die; his blood shall be upon him.’ See, then, how the prophet associates the usurer with the idolater, as if to suggest that these transgressions are equal. Choose, therefore, that which is sweet.”
Unlike the majority of the fathers—as well as Luther and Walther after them—Ambrose did not interpret the allowance of usury in the case of foreigners in Deuteronomy as a concession to human weakness or the hardness of Israelite hearts. Instead, in a rather unique way, he viewed usury as a weapon of war, righteously wielded against the enemies of God’s people. Yet even so, he recognized that Christ calls His followers to a higher standard, and throughout De Tobia he underscores Solomon’s teaching in Proverbs 19:17, that in freely lending, one lends to the Lord, Who repays abundantly in eternity. Ambrose writes (§54): “But the Lord, in the Gospels, teaches that we ought rather to lend to those from whom no return is to be expected. For He says: ‘And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore, be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.’ Observe what name the Lord bestows upon the usurer, and also upon the debtor who is ensnared by usury. ‘Sinners,’ He says, ‘lend to sinners, that they may receive in return.’ Both are alike sinners: the usurer and the debtor. To you, therefore, Christ says, ‘Love your enemies.’ The matter is not what your enemies deserve, but what you, as a follower of Christ, are called to do. Lend to those from whom you do not expect repayment. This is no loss, but a genuine gain. You give little, and you shall receive much. You give on earth, and you shall be repaid in heaven. You relinquish your interest, and you will receive a great reward. You cease to be usurers, and you become sons of the Most High; you become merciful, and are thus shown to be heirs of your eternal Father.”
Further developing this important theme, he goes on to write (§55): “I will show you how to be good usurers, how to seek usury in a righteous way. Solomon declares: ‘He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, and He will pay back what he has given.’ Behold! Evil interest is transformed into good; here is a blameless usurer, here is praiseworthy usury. Do not then regard me as one who begrudges your profit. Do you really think that I am taking away from you your debtor? Rather, I offer you God in his place. I substitute Christ; I point to Him Who cannot deceive. Lend your money, then, to the Lord, placed right into the hand of the poor. He is the one Who binds Himself and takes account of all that the needy receive. The Gospel is His bond; He stands surety for all the needy and offers His pledge. Why do you hesitate to give? If a wealthy man of this world were to show up and offer his own guarantee on behalf of a debtor, you would immediately count out the money. And yet the Lord of heaven and Creator of the world presents Himself to you in the form of the needy. Do you still deliberate? Why? What richer surety could you possibly seek?”
Ambrose further reflects on the ancient and ever-recurring nature of usury, a soul-strangling iniquity as old as it is enduring (§46): “This evil is neither new nor insignificant, but one long restrained by the divine precepts of the Old Testament. The very people who plundered Egypt and passed through the sea on foot were warned against the spiritual shipwrecks that come through the ‘profit’ of usury. Though the law gives many admonitions concerning various sins—whether once or continually—none receives more frequent mention than usury. In Exodus it is written: ‘If you lend money to any of My people who are poor among you, you shall not strangle him; you shall not oppress him with usury.’ Scripture thus makes clear what it means by ‘strangling,’ namely, the oppression of usury, for the creditor’s noose tightens not around the neck, but around the soul, suffocating it. With this vivid term, the law expresses both the violence of the robber and the torment of a dreadful death. Again, it is written (Exodus 22:26–27): ‘If you ever take your neighbor’s garment as a pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down. For that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin. What will he sleep in? And it will be that when he cries to Me, I will hear, for I am gracious.’ Do you hear, O usurers, what the law declares, of which our Lord said, ‘I did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill’? Will you destroy what Christ Himself did not destroy? ‘To seek usury,’ it says, ‘is to strangle.’ And even certain wise men outside the covenant later echoed this truth. ‘If you are asking about usury,’ he says, ‘then you are ultimately asking about killing a man.’ But surely Cato, who spoke thus, was not prior to Moses, who personally received the law; no, he came much later.” (Note: Ambrose is referring to the Septuagint’s use of κατεπείγω in Exodus 22:25, which can mean “to strangle.”)
Later on in the text, he revisits the theme of usury’s antiquity and widespread practice with these words (§88): “I am not unaware that certain individuals remarked, only two days ago—no doubt stung by the sharpness of my sermon—‘What was the bishop intending by inveighing against usurers, as though some new transgression had arisen, as though our forefathers had not also practiced this, as though the taking of usury were not an ancient custom?’ It is true, and I did not deny it; usury is indeed an old practice. But so also is sin! Sin was committed by Adam, and from him came guilt; from him also came Eve. From him arose falsehood, as well as our fallen human condition. Therefore, Christ came. He came to destroy the old, to establish the new, and to restore by grace what sin had corrupted. For this purpose, He gave Himself over to suffering, that by His Spirit He might renew and liberate us all. For the devil beguiled Eve that she might overthrow her husband and pledge their inheritance.”
Evidently, like Gregory of Nyssa before him, Ambrose encountered resistance to this teaching even within his own congregations. It was clearly a hard teaching then, and perhaps an even harder one now, as usury has only become more prevalent and normalized in the many centuries since.
Continuing in the tradition of the Cappadocians, Ambrose, near the conclusion of the text, issues a solemn warning against the practice of usury, addressing both the rich and the poor alike (§82): “Just know that wealth is diminished by interest and poverty is not alleviated by it. For evil is never remedied by evil, nor is a wound healed by another wound; instead, it is only worsened and made into an ulcer.”
Throughout De Tobia, Ambrose consistently exhorts his audience to practice free lending in place of usury, motivated by the pursuit of good works and righteousness. This exhortation is encapsulated in a passage near the beginning of the text (§9): “Many, out of fear of loss, withhold lending, dreading deceit and fraud; and this, indeed, is the excuse they are accustomed to offer those who seek their help. To each of them it is said (Sirach 29): ‘Lose your money for your brother and your friend: do not hide it under a stone to rot. Dispose of your treasure according to the commandments of the Most High, and it will profit you more than gold.’ Yet the ears of men remain deaf to such salutary precepts, especially the ears of the rich, which are stopped by the brazen clamor of their wealth. While they are counting their coins noisily, they do not hear the voice of Scripture.”
Before turning to the two later texts where Ambrose discusses usury, I would like to quote a concise passage from one of his letters to Vigilius, Bishop of Trent, c. 385. Ambrose writes (Epistle XIX): “You shall not lend your money at interest, for it is written: ‘He who has not put out his money at usury shall abide in the tabernacle of God’ (Psalm 15). By contrast, he who seeks gain through usury is cast down. Therefore, let the Christian, if he has it, lend expecting nothing in return, or at most, only the principal back. In so doing, he gains no small measure of divine grace. Otherwise, lending becomes deception rather than mercy. For what could be more cruel than to give money to one in need, only to demand back twice as much? If a person cannot repay the original sum, how can he possibly repay double? Let Tobit serve as our example: he never sought to reclaim the money he had lent, not until the end of his life. And even then, he did so only to avoid defrauding his heir, not to recover the loan for his own benefit. Usury has been the ruin of many nations and the cause of widespread destruction. For this reason, it must be the chief concern of us bishops to root out those vices which we find to be most prevalent among the people.”
Ambrose’s next treatment of usury appeared roughly a decade and a half later in one of his most celebrated works, De bono mortis, a meditation on the goodness of death for the Christian. Although his discussion of usury here is incredibly brief, it is nevertheless forceful. Following the example of many earlier church fathers, Ambrose grounds the moral prohibition against lending at interest in Ezekiel 18. He writes, quite matter-of-factly (XII.56): “If anyone demands interest on a loan, he commits robbery and no longer has life, as it is said in Ezekiel.” According to Ambrose—and Scripture, it is implied—this sin, if left unrepented, separates one from God.
Finally, Ambrose returns to the theme of usury in De officiis, a work composed around the same time as De bono mortis, which explores the duties of the clergy. In the context of his reflection on the unity of the body of Christ and the mutual care Christians owe one another, Ambrose contends that usury violates both natural law and divine law. He argues (III.3): “Indeed, the very law of the Lord teaches that this principle must be upheld: we are never to deprive another for the sake of personal gain. As Scripture declares, ‘Do not remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set’ (Proverbs 22:28). Scripture commands that a neighbor’s wandering ox be returned, that the thief be punished, that the laborer not be deprived of his wages, and that money be lent without interest. To assist one who has nothing is a sign of compassion; to demand more than one has given is the mark of a truly hardened heart. If someone lacks sufficient means to repay a debt and turns to you for help, is it not cruel to demand, under the pretense of kindness, an even greater sum from one who cannot even repay the lesser? You merely release him from one creditor only to enslave him to yourself, and you dare to call such oppression an act of charity.”
Like Luther long after him (see LW, 45: 292), Ambrose understood the “law of the Lord,” especially as expressed in the Golden Rule (Luke 6:31), to cover both divine and natural law. Usury is thus forbidden not only by Scripture but also by the dictates of nature, for no one would willingly desire to being charged interest. And yet, Ambrose laments, even within the church, we too often regard one another not as members of one body, but as opportunities for personal profit.
With this in view, and in closing this part of the series, I would like to ask you, dear reader, the following: Even if one were to argue that, in our day, money has become productive and that profit need not come at another’s expense, does moneylending not still serve to dehumanize? Does it not continue to tempt us to view our neighbor—even fellow members of Christ’s body, the church—not as recipients of love and good works, but as means for personal gain? Has finance sanctified us, or has it instead ensnared us? Has the supposed generation of money from money delivered us from the grip of mammonism, or has it, in fact, drawn us more deeply into its grasp? These are questions worth pondering as we proceed through the remainder of this series.
God willing, in the next installment, we will cover our final church fathers: Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, and Leo the Great.
Stay tuned.