honest and yet a usurer.
"Ezekiel goes even further (Ezek. 22:12). Enumerating the crimes which inflamed the wrath of the Lord against the Jews, he uses two words, one of which means usury, and is derived from a root meaning to consume; the other word means increase or addition, doubtless because one devoted to his private gain takes or rather extorts it from the loss of his neighbor. It is clear that the prophets spake even more harshly of usury because it was forbidden by name among the Jews, and when therefore it was practiced against the express command of God, it merited even heavier censure.
"But when it is said, that as the cause of our state is the same, the same prohibition of usury should be retained, I answer that there is some difference in what pertains to the civil state. Because the surroundings of the place in which the Lord placed the Jews, as well as other circumstances, tended to this, that it might be easy for them to deal among themselves without usury, while our state today is very different in many respects. Therefore usury is not wholly forbidden among us unless it be repugnant both to Justice and to Charity.
"It is said, 'Money does not beget money.' What does the sea beget? What does a house from the letting of which I receive a rent? Is money born from roofs and walls? But on the other hand both the earth produces and something is brought from the sea which afterward produces money, and the convenience of a house can be bought and sold for money. If therefore more profit can be derived from trading through the employment of money than from the produce of a farm, the purpose of which is subsistence, should one who lets some barren farm to a farmer, receiving in return a price or part of the produce, be approved, and one who loans money to be used for profit be condemned? And when one buys a farm for money does not that farm produce other money yearly? And whence is derived the profit of the merchant? You will say from his