Martin Luther
On trading and usury
1524
The translation is from ”Works of Martin Luther”
(Philadelphia: A. J. Holman Company, 1915, vol. 4)
The Holy Gospel, since it has come
to light, rebukes and reveals all “the works of darkness,” as
I
think, to be sure, that this book of mine will be quite in vain, because the
mischief has gone so far and has completely got the upper hand in all lands;
and because those who understand the Gospel ought to be able in such easy,
external things to let their own conscience be judge of what is proper and what
is not. Nevertheless I have been urged and begged to touch upon these financial
misdoings and to expose some of them, so that even though the majority may not
want to do right, some, if only a few, may yet be delivered from the gaping
jaws of avarice. For it must be that among the merchants, as among other
people, there are some who belong to Christ and would rather be poor with God
than rich with the devil, as says Psalm 37:16, “Better is the little that the
righteous hath than the great possessions of the godless.” For their sake,
then, we must speak out.
It
is not to be denied that buying and selling are necessary. They cannot be
dispensed with and can be practiced in a Christian manner, especially when the
articles of trade serve a necessary and honorable purpose. For in this wise
even the patriarchs bought and sold cattle, wool, grain, butter, milk and other
goods. These are gifts of God, which He bestows out of the earth and
distributes among men. But foreign trade, which brings from
God
has cast us Germans off. We have to throw our gold and silver into foreign
lands and make the whole world rich while we ourselves remain beggars. England
would have less gold if Germany let it keep its cloth, and the king of
Portugal, too, would have less if we let him keep his spices. Count up how much
gold is taken out of
Conscience and natural law
First – The merchants have among
themselves one common rule, which is their chief maxim
and the basis of all their sharp practices. They say: I may sell my goods as
dear as I can. This they think their right. Lo, that is giving place to avarice
and opening every door and window to hell. What does it mean? Only this: “I
care nothing about my neighbor; so long as I have my profit and satisfy my
greed, what affair is it of mine if it does my neighbor ten injuries at once?”
There you see how shamelessly this maxim flies squarely in the face not only of
Christian love, but of natural law. Now what good is there in trade? How can it
be without sin when such injustice is the chief maxim and the rule of the whole
business? On this basis trade can be nothing else than robbing and stealing
other people’s property.
For
when this rogue’s eye and greedy belly of a merchant finds that people must
have his wares, or that the buyer is poor and needs them, he takes advantage of
him and raises the price. He considers, not the value of the goods or what he
has earned by his trouble and risk, but only the other man’s need; not that he
may relieve it, but that he may use it for his own profit, to raise the price
of goods, which he would not have raised if it had not been for his neighbor’s
need. Because of his greed, therefore, the wares must have a price proportioned
to his neighbor’s need for them, and his neighbor’s need, like his own wares,
must have a valuation. Pray, is not that unchristian and inhuman conduct? Is
not that selling a poor man his own poverty? If, because of his need, he has to
buy his wares so much the dearer, it is just the same as if he had to buy his
own need; for what is sold is not the wares as they are, but the wares plus the
fact that he must have them. This and like abominations are the necessary
consequence when the rule is: I may sell my wares as dear as I can.
The
rule ought to be, not: I may sell my wares as dear as I can or will, but: I may
sell my wares as dear as I ought, or as is right and proper. For your selling
ought not to be a work that is entirely within your own power and will, without
law or limit, as though you were a god and beholden to no one; but because this
selling of yours is a work that you perform toward your neighbor, it must be so
governed by law and conscience, that you do it without harm and injury to your
neighbor, and that you be much more concerned to do him no injury than to make
large profits. But where are such merchants? How few merchants there would be
and how trade would fall off, if they were to amend this evil rule and put
things on a Christian basis!
You
ask, then, How dear may I sell? How am I to get at
what is fair and right so as not to overreach or overcharge my neighbor? I
answer: That is indeed a thing that will never be
governed either by writing or speaking, nor has anyone ever undertaken to fix
the price of every sort of wares. The reason is that wares are not all alike:
one sort comes from a greater distance than another,
one sort costs more than another. On this point, therefore, everything is, and
must remain, uncertain and no fixed rule can be made, any more than one can set
a certain city as the place from which all wares are to be brought or establish
a definite cost price for them, since it may happen that the same wares,
brought from the same city by the same road, cost vastly more one year than
another, because, perhaps, the weather is had or the road is worse, or something
else happens that raises the cost at one time above that at another time. Now
it is fair and right that a merchant take as much profit on his wares as will
pay the cost of them and repay him for his trouble, his labor, and his risk.
Even a farmhand must have food and hire for his labor; who can serve or labor
for nothing? The Gospel says, “The laborer is worthy of his hire.”
Price setting
But in order not to leave this
question entirely unanswered, the best and safest way would be for the temporal
authorities to appoint over this matter wise and honest men who would appraise
the cost of all sorts of wares and fix accordingly the outside price at which
the merchant would get his due and have an honest living, just as at certain
places they fix the price of wine, fish, bread and the like. But we Germans are
so busy with drinking and dancing that we cannot tolerate any such regulation.
Since, then, we cannot hope for such a law, the next best thing is to hold our
wares at the price which they bring in the common market or which is customary
in the neighborhood. In this matter we can accept the proverb: “Do like others
and you are no fool.” Any profit made in this way, I consider honest and well
earned, since there is risk of loss in wares and outlay, and the profits cannot
be all too great.
But
when the price of goods is not fixed either by law or custom, and you must fix
it yourself, then indeed no one can give you any other instructions except to
lay it upon your conscience to be careful and not overcharge your neighbor, and
seek not avaricious gain, but only an honest living. Some have wished to make
it a rule that a man may take a profit of onehalf on all wares; some say
one-third; others say something else; but none of these things is a safe rule
unless it be so decreed, either by the temporal authorities or by common law;
what they would determine would be safe. Therefore you must make up your minds
to seek in your trading only your honest living, count your costs, trouble,
labor and risk on that basis, and then fix, raise, or lower the price of your
goods, so that you are repaid for your trouble and labor.
To
be sure, I would not have anyone’s conscience so perilously restrained or so
closely bound on this point as to insist that one must strike the right measure
of profit to the very heller; for it is not possible to get at the exact amount
that you have earned with your trouble and labor. It is enough that with a good
conscience you seek to arrive at the exact amount, for it lies in the very
nature of trade that the thing is impossible. The saying of the Wise Man will
hold in your case too: “A merchant will hardly deal without sin, and a merchant
will hardly keep his lips from evil.” If you therefore take a little too much
profit, unknowingly and unintentionally, let that go into your Lord’s Prayer,
where we pray, “Forgive us our debts,” for no man’s life is without sin.
Besides, the time will come when you will get too little for your trouble;
throw that in the scale to balance the times when you have taken too much.
For
example, if you had a business of a hundred gulden a year, and above all the
costs and honest returns which you had for your trouble, labor, and risk, you
were to take an excessive profit of one or two or three gulden, that I should
call a mistake which could not well be avoided, especially on a whole year’s
business. Therefore you should not burden your conscience with it, but bring it
to God in the Lord’s Prayer, as another of those inevitable sins that cleave to
all of us. It is not selfishness or greed that forces you to this mistake, but
the very nature of your occupation (I am speaking now of good-hearted,
God-fearing men, who would not willingly do wrong), just as the marriage duty
is not performed without sin, and yet because of its necessity God winks at it,
for it cannot be otherwise.
In
deciding how much profit you ought to take on your business and your labor,
there is no better way to reckon it than by estimating the amount of time and
labor you have put on it and comparing it with that of a day laborer, who works
at another occupation, and seeing how much he earns in a day. On that basis
reckon how many days you have spent in getting your wares and bringing them to
your place of business, how great the labor has been and how much risk you have
run, for great labor and much time ought to have so much the greater returns.
That is the most accurate, the best and the most definite advice that can be
given in this matter; if anyone mislikes it, let him better it. My ground is,
as I have said, in the Gospel, “A laborer is worthy of his hire,” and Paul also
says, “He that feedeth the flock shall eat of the milk; who goeth to war at his
own cost and expense?” If you have a better ground than that, you are welcome
to it.
Surety
Second – There is a common error,
which has become a widespread custom, not only among merchants but throughout
the world, by which one man becomes surety for another; and although this
practice seems to be without sin and looks like a virtue springing from love,
nevertheless it causes the ruin of many and brings them irrevocable injury.
King Solomon often forbade it and condemned it in his Proverbs, and says in
Proverbs 6:8, “My son, if thou be surety for thy neighbor, thou hast bound
thine hand, thou art snared with the words of thy mouth and taken with the
words of thy mouth. Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself, for thou art come
into the hand of thy neighbor; go, hasten, and urge thy neighbor; give not
sleep to thine eyes nor slumber to thine eyelids; deliver thyself as a roe out
of the hand and as a bird out of the hand of the fowler.” So also in Proverbs
See
with what strictness and vehemence the wise king forbids in Holy Scripture that
one become surety for another, and the German proverb agrees with him, Burgen
soll man wurgen; as if to say, “Standing surety should be slain.” It serves the
surety right when he is caught and has to pay, for he acts thoughtlessly and foolishly
in standing surety. Therefore it is decreed in Scripture that no one shall
become surety for another unless he is able and entirely willing to assume the
debt and pay it. It seems strange that this practice should be wrong and be
condemned, though many have discovered the folly of it when it has made them
scratch their heads.
Why,
then, is it condemned? Let us see. Standing surety is a work that is too lofty
for a man; it is unseemly, for it is presumptuous and an invasion of God’s
rights. For, in the first place, the Scriptures bid us to put our trust and
place our reliance on no man, but only on God; for human nature is false, vain,
deceitful, and unreliable, as the Scriptures say and as experience teaches
everyday. But he who becomes surety puts his trust in a man, and risks life and
property on a false and insecure foundation; therefore it serves him right when
he falls and fails and goes to ruin.
In
the second place, a man puts his trust in himself and makes himself God, for
that on which a man puts his trust and reliance is his god. But of his life and
property a man is not sure and certain for a single moment, any more than he is
certain of the man for whom he becomes surety, but everything is in God’s hand
only, and He will not allow us a hair’s breadth of power or right over the
future or have us for a single moment sure or certain of it.
Therefore
the man who becomes surety acts unchristianlike, and deserves what he gets,
because he pledges and promises what is not his and is not in his power, but in
the hands of God alone. Thus we read in Genesis 43:9 and Genesis 44:14 how the
patriarch Judah became surety to his father Jacob for his brother Benjamin,
promising that he would bring him back or bear the blame forever, but God
finely punished his presumption so that he could not bring Benjamin back until
he gave himself up for him, and afterwards was barely freed by grace. It served
him right, too, for these sureties act as though they did not need to be on
speaking terms with God or to consider whether they were sure of a tomorrow for
their life and property. They act without fear of God, as though their life and
property were their own, and were in their power as long as they wished to have
it; and this is nothing but a fruit of unbelief. James in his Epistle, James
Moreover,
God has condemned this presumption about the future and disregard of Him in
more places, such as Luke
Solomon
has devoted almost the whole of that book of his that is called Ecclesiastes to
this teaching, and shows how all man’s planning and presumption are vanity and
trouble and misfortune, unless God is brought into them, so that man fears Him
and is satisfied with the present and rejoices in it; for God is the enemy of
that secure and unbelieving presumption which forgets Him, wherefore He opposes
it in all He does, lets us fail and fall, snatches away life and property when
we least expect it, and “comes at the hour when we think not,” so that the
godless, as the Psalter says, never live out half their days, but always,
unexpectedly and just when they are getting started, must depart and leave it,
as Job also says in many places.
Four Christian manners
If you say, however, “How then are
people to trade with one another, if surety is not allowed? Many would have to
stay back who can otherwise get on well”; I answer: There are four Christian ways of trading external goods with
others.
The
first way is to let them rob us of our property and take it from us, as Christ
says in Matthew
The
second way is to give freely to everyone who needs it, as Christ teaches in the
same passage. This is a lofty Christian work and therefore counts for little
among people, and there would be fewer merchants and less trade if it were put
into practice; for the man who does this must truly lay hold on heaven and look
always to God’s hand and not to his accumulations of property, knowing that it
is God’s will to support him, even though all his corners be bare. He knows
that it is true, as He said to Joshua, “I will not forsake thee, nor take away
my hand,” and as the proverb puts it, “God has more than ever He gave away.”
But that takes a true Christian, and a true Christian is a rare animal; the
world and nature pay no heed to them.
The
third way is lending; that is, I give away my property and take it back if it is
returned to me; if not, then I must do without it. Christ Himself makes a rule
for this kind of lending and says, “Lend, hoping for nothing again”; that is,
Ye shall lend freely and run the risk that it may not be returned; if it comes
back, take it; if not, make it a gift. The Gospel makes only one distinction
between lending and giving, viz., a gift is not taken back and a loan is taken
back if it is returned; but when we make a loan, we take the risk that it may
be a gift. He who lends expecting to get back something more or something
better than he has loaned, is clearly a damned usurer, since even those who
lend demanding or expecting to get back just what they have lent, and taking no
risk of its return, are not acting in a Christian way. This too, as I think, is
a lofty Christian work and a rare one, when the way of the world is considered,
and if it were practiced it would greatly lessen and destroy trade of all
sorts.
These
three ways of dealing, then, are a masterly keeping of the commandments not to
presume upon the future nor to put trust in any man or in self, but to depend
solely on God. In this way everything is paid in cash and the word of James is
applied, “If God will, so be it.” In this way we deal with people as with those
who may fail and are unreliable; we give our money without profit and take the
risk that what we lend may be lost.
But
here someone will say: “Who then can be saved and where shall we find
Christians? Nay, in this way there would be no trade in the world; everyone
would have his property taken or borrowed and the door would be thrown open for
the idle gluttons, of whom the world is full, to take everything with their
lying and cheating.” I reply: I have already said that Christians are rare in
the world; therefore the world needs a strict, hard temporal government that
will compel and constrain the wicked not to steal and rob and to return what
they borrow, even though a Christian ought not demand
it, or even hope to get it back. This is necessary in order that the world may
not become a desert, peace may not perish, and trade and society may not be
utterly destroyed: all which would happen if we were to rule the world
according to the Gospel and not drive and compel the wicked, by laws and the
use of force, to do and suffer what is right. We must, therefore, keep the
roads open, preserve peace in the towns, and enforce law in the land, and let
the sword hew brisky and boldly against the transgressors, as Paul teaches in
Romans 13:4. For it is God’s will that those who are not Christians shall be
held in check and kept from doing wrong, at least with impunity. Let no one
think that the world can be ruled without blood; the sword of the ruler must be
red and bloody; for the world will and must be evil, and the sword is God’s rod
and vengeance upon it. But of this I have said enough in my little book On the
Temporal Authorities. Borrowing would be a fine thing, if it were practiced
between Christians.
In
that case everyone would return what he had borrowed and the lender would
willingly do without it if the borrower could not pay; for Christians are
brethren and one does not forsake another, nor is any of them so lazy and
shameless as not to work, but to depend on another’s wealth and labor, or be
willing to consume in idleness another’s goods. But if men are not Christians,
the temporal authorities ought to compel them to repay what they have borrowed;
if the authorities are negligent and do not compel repayment, the Christian
ought to put up with the robbery, as Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 6:7, “Why do
ye not rather suffer wrong?” But if a man is not a Christian, you may exhort
him, demand of him, treat him as you will; he pays no attention, for he is not
a Christian and does not heed Christ’s doctrine.
There
is a grain of comfort for you in the fact that you are not bound to make a loan
except out of your surplus and what you can spare from your own necessities, as
Christ says of alms, “What you have left over, that give in alms; so are all
things clean unto you.” If, therefore, someone wanted to borrow from you an
amount so great that you would be ruined if it were not returned, and you could
not spare it from your own necessities, then you are not bound to make the
loan; for your first and greatest duty is to provide for the necessities of
your wife and children and servants, and you must not divert from them what is
due them from you. Thus the best rule to follow is that if the amount asked as
a loan is too great, you give something outright, or lend as much as you would
be willing to give, taking the risk of losing it. John the Baptist did not say,
“He that hath one coat, let him give it away,” but “He that hath two coats, let
him give one to him that hath none, and he that hath food, let him do
likewise.”
The
fourth way of trading is buying and selling, and that with cash money or payments
in kind. If a man wishes to practice this method, he must make up his mind not
to rely on anything in the future but only on God, and to deal with men who
will certainly fail and lie. Therefore the first piece of advice to such a man
is that he shall not borrow anything or accept any security, but take only
cash. If he wishes to lend, let him lend to Christians, or else take the risk
of losing it and lend no more than he would be willing to give outright or can spare
from his own necessities. If the government will not help him get his loan
back, let him lose it; and let him beware of becoming surety for any man, but
let him far rather give what he can. Such a man would be a true Christian
merchant and God would not forsake him, because he trusts Him finely and gladly
takes a chance, in dealing with his risky neighbor.
Now
if there were no such thing in the world as becoming surety, and the free
lending of the Gospel were in practice and only cash money or ready wares were
exchanged in trade, then the greatest and most harmful dangers and faults and
failings in merchandising would be well out of the way; it would be easy to
engage in all sorts of business, and the other sinful faults could the better
be prevented. For if there were none of this becoming surety and lending on
security, many a man would have to keep down and be satisfied with a moderate
living, who now aspires day and night after the high places, relying on
borrowing and standing surety. This is the reason that everyone now wants to be
a merchant and get rich. Out of this come the countless dangerous and wicked
tricks and wiles that have become a jest among the merchants. There are so many
of them that I have given up the hope that trade can be entirely corrected; it
is so overladen with all sorts of wickedness and deception that it cannot drag
its own length; by its own weight it must fall in upon itself.
In
what has been said I have wished to give a bit of warning and instruction to
everyone about this great, nasty, widespread business of merchandising. If we
were to accept the principle that everyone may sell his wares as dear as he
can, and were to approve the custom of borrowing and forced lending and
standing surety, and yet try to advise men how they could act the part of
Christians and keep their consciences good and safe – that would be the same as
trying to teach men how wrong could be right and bad good, and how one could at
the same time live and act according to the divine Scriptures and against the
divine Scriptures. For these three errors – that everyone may sell what is his
own as dear as he will, borrowing, and becoming surety – these, I say, are the
three sources from which the stream of abomination, injustice, treachery and
guile flows far and wide: to try to stem the flood and not stop up the springs,
is trouble and labor lost.
Business swindle
At this point, therefore, I wish to
tell of some of these tricks and evil doings which I have myself observed and
which pious, good people have described to me, to make it apparent how
necessary it is that the rules and principles which I have set down above be
established and put in practice, if the consciences of merchants are to be
counseled and aided; also in order that all the rest of their evil doings may
be learned and measured by these; for how is it possible to tell them all? By
the three aforementioned sources of evil, door and window are thrown wide to
greed and to wicked, wily, self-seeking nature; room is made for them, occasion
and power is given them to practice unhindered all sorts of wiles and trickery,
and daily to think out more such schemes, so that everything stinks of avarice,
nay, is drowned and drenched in avarice as in a great new Deluge.
First,
There are some who have no conscientious scruples
against selling their goods on credit for a higher price than if they were sold
for cash: nay, there are some who wish to sell no goods for cash but everything
on credit, so that they may make large profits. Observe that this way of
dealing – which is plainly against God’s Word, against reason and all fairness,
and springs from sheer wantonness and greed – is a sin against one’s neighbor,
for it does not consider his loss, and robs and steals from him that which
belongs to him; it is not a seeking for an honest living, but only for
avaricious gain. According to divine law, goods should not be sold for a higher
price on credit than for cash.
Again,
there are some who sell their goods at a higher price than they command in the
common market, or than is customary in the trade; and raise the price of their
wares for no other reason than because they know that there is no more of that
commodity in the country, or that the supply will shortly cease, and people
must have it. That is a very rogue’s eye of greed, which sees only one’s
neighbor’s need, not to relieve it but to make the most of it and grow rich on
one’s neighbor’s losses. All such people are manifest thieves, robbers and
usurers.
Again,
there are some who buy up the entire supply of certain goods or wares in a
country or a city, so that they may have those goods solely in their own power
and can then fix and raise the price and sell them as dear as they like or can.
Now I have said above that the rule that a man may sell his goods as dear as he
will or can is false and unchristian. It is far more abominable that one should
buy up the whole commodity for that purpose.
Even
the imperial and temporal laws forbid this and call it “monopoly,” i.e.,
purchase for self-interest, which is not to be tolerated in city or country,
and princes and lords would stop it and punish it if they did their duty. Merchants who do this act just as though God’s creatures and God’s
goods were made for them alone and given to them alone, and as though they
could take them from other people and set on them whatever price they chose.
Punctual care
If anyone wishes to urge the example
of Joseph in Genesis 41:48, how the holy man gathered all the grain in the
country and afterwards, in the time of famine, bought with it for the king of
Egypt all the money, cattle, land and people – which seems, indeed, to have
been a monopoly, or practice of self-interest – this is the answer: This
purchase of Joseph’s was no monopoly, but a common and honest purchase, such as
was customary in the country. He prevented no one else from buying during the
good years, but it was his God-given wisdom which enabled him to gather the
king’s grain in the seven years of plenty, while others were accumulating
little or nothing. For the text does not say that he alone bought in the grain,
but that he “gathered it in the king’s cities.” If the others did not do
likewise, it was their loss, for the common man usually devours his living
unconcernedly and sometimes, too, he has nothing to accumulate. We see the same
thing today. If princes and cities do not provide a reserve supply for the
benefit of the whole country, there is little or no reserve in the hands of the
common man, who supports himself from year to year on his yearly income.
Accumulation of this kind is not selfinterest, or monopoly, but a really good
Christian providence for the community and for the good of others. It is not
practiced in such a way that they seize everything for themselves alone, like
these merchants, but out of the yield of the common market, or the yearly
income which everyone has, they set aside a treasury, while others either
cannot or will not accumulate, but get out of it only their daily support.
Moreover the Scriptures do not tell us that Joseph gathered the grain to sell
it as dear as he would, for the text clearly says that he did it not for
greed’s sake, but in order that land and people might not be ruined. But the
merchant, in his greed, sells it as dear as he can, seeking only his own profit,
caring nothing whether land and people are ruined by it.
But that Joseph used this means to
bring all the money and cattle, and all the land and people beside, into the
king’s possession, does not seem to have been a Christian act, since he ought
to have given to the needy for nothing, as the Gospel and Christian love bid us
do. Yet he did right and well, for Joseph was conducting the temporal
government in the king’s stead. I have often taught that the world ought not
and cannot be ruled according to the Gospel and Christian love, but only by
strict laws, with sword and force, because the world is evil and accepts
neither Gospel nor love, but lives and acts according to its own will unless it
is compelled by force. Otherwise, if only love were applied, everyone would
eat, drink and live at ease on someone else’s goods, and nobody would work;
nay, everyone would take from another that which was his, and there would be
such a state of affairs that no one could live because of the others.
Therefore,
because God so disposes things, Joseph did right when he got possession of
everything by such fair and honest purchase as the time permitted, and
following the temporal law, allowed the people to remain under restraint and
sell themselves and all they had; for in that country there was always a strict
government and it was customary to sell people like other goods. Besides, there
can be no doubt that as a Christian and a good man, he let no poor man die of
hunger but as the text says, after he had received the king’s law and
government, he gathered, sold, and distributed the corn for the benefit and
profit of land and people. Therefore the example of the faithful Joseph is as
remote from the doings of the unfaithful, self-seeking merchants as heaven is
far from earth. So far this digression; now we come back to the merchants’
tricks.
Trade agreements and cartels
When some see that they cannot
establish their monopolies in any other way because other people have the same
goods, they proceed to sell their goods so cheap that the others can make no
profit, and thus they compel them either not to sell at all, or else to sell as
cheap as they themselves are selling and so be ruined. Thus they get their
monopoly after all. These people are not worthy to he called men or to live
among other men, nay they are not worth exhorting or instructing; for their
envy and greed is so open and shameless that even at the cost of their own
losses they cause loss to others, so that they may have the whole place to
themselves. The authorities would do right if they took from such people
everything they had and drove them out of the country. It would scarcely have
been necessary to tell of such doings, but I wanted to include them so that it
might be seen what great knavery there is in trade, and that it might be plain
to everybody how things are going in the world, in order that everyone may know
how to protect himself against such a dangerous class.
Again,
it is a fine piece of sharp practice when one man sells to another, by means of
promises, (Mit worten ym sack), goods which he himself has not, as follows. A
merchant from a distance comes to me and asks if I have such and such goods for
sale. I say, Yes, though I have not, and sell them to him for ten or eleven
gulden when they could otherwise be bought for nine or less, promising him to
deliver them in two or three days.
Meanwhile
I go and buy the goods where I knew in advance that I could buy them cheaper; I
deliver them and he pays me for them. Thus I deal with his – the other man’s –
money and property, without risk, trouble or labor, and I get rich. That is
called “living off the street,” on someone else’s money; he who does this need
not travel over land and sea.
Again
it is called “living off the street” if a merchant has a purseful of money and
wishes no longer to subject his goods to the risks of land and sea, but to have
a safe business, and settles down in a great business city.
Then
when he hears of a merchant who is pressed by his creditors and must have money
to satisfy them and has none, but has good wares, he gets someone to act for
him in buying the wares and offers eight gulden for what is otherwise worth
ten. If this offer is not accepted, he gets someone else to offer six or seven,
and the poor man begins to be afraid that his wares are depreciating and is
glad to take the eight so as to get cash money and not have to stand too much
loss and disgrace. It happens, too, that these needy merchants seek out such
tyrants and offer their goods for cash with which to pay their debts. They
drive hard bargains and get the goods cheap enough and afterwards sell them at
their own prices. These financiers are called “cutthroats,” but they pass for
very clever people.
Here
is another bit of self-seeking. Three or four merchants have in their control
one or two kinds of goods that others have not, or have not for sale. When
these men see that the goods are valuable and are advancing in price all the
time because of war or of some disaster, they join forces and pretend to others
that the goods are much in demand and that not many people have them on sale;
if however there are some who have these goods for sale they put up a stranger
to buy up all these goods, and when they have them entirely in their own
control they make an agreement to this effect: Since there are no more of these
goods to be had we will hold them at such and such a price, and whoever sells
cheaper shall forfeit so and so much. This trick, I hear, is practiced chiefly
and mostly by the English merchants in selling English or
Dishonest financial speculation
Again, I must report this little
trick. I sell a man pepper or the like on six months’ credit and know that he
must sell it again by that time to get ready money. Then I go to him myself, or
send someone else, and buy the pepper back for cash, but on these terms. What
he bought from me for twelve gulden I buy back for eight,
and the market price is ten. So I make going and coming, so that he may get the
money and maintain his credit; otherwise he might have the disgrace of having
no one extend him credit in the future.
The
people who buy on credit more than they can pay for, practice or have to
practice this kind of trickery – a man, for example, who has scarcely two
hundred gulden obligates himself for five or six hundred. If my creditors do
not pay, I cannot pay, and so the mischief goes deeper and deeper and one loss
follows another the farther I go in this kind of
dealing, until at last I see the shadow of the gallows and I must either
abscond or go to jail. Then I keep my own counsel and give my creditors good
words, telling them I will pay my debts. Meanwhile I go and get as much goods
on credit as I can and turn them into money, or get money otherwise on a
promissory note, or borrow as much as I can. Then when it suits me, or when my
creditors give me no rest, I close up my house, get up and run away, hiding
myself in some monastery, where I am as free as a thief or murderer in a church
yard. Then my creditors are glad that I have not fled the country and release
me from a half or a third of my debts on condition that I pay the balance in
two or three years, giving me letter and seal for it.
Then
I come back to my house and am a merchant who has made two or three thousand
gulden by getting up and running away, and that is more than I could have got
in three or four years either by running or trotting. Or if that plan will not
help and I see that I must abscond, I go to the court of the Emperor or the
Viceroy and for one or two hundred gulden I get a Quinquernell, i.e., a letter
with the imperial seal permitting me to be at large for two or three years
despite my creditors, because I have represented that I have suffered great
losses; for the Quinquernells, too, make a pretense at being godly and right.
These are knaves’ tricks.
Again
there is another practice that is customary in the companies. A citizen
deposits with a merchant one or two thousand gulden for six years. The merchant
is to trade with this and pay the citizen annually two hundred gulden fixed
interest, win or lose. What profit he makes above that is his own, but if he
makes no profit he must still pay the charge. In this way the citizen is doing
the merchant a great service, for the merchant expects with two thousand gulden
to make at least three hundred; on the other hand, the merchant is doing the
citizen a great service, for otherwise his money must lie idle and bring him no
profit. That this common practice is wrong and is true usury I have shown
sufficiently in the Discourse on Usury. I must give one more illustration to
show how borrowing and lending leads to misfortune. When some people see that a
buyer is unreliable and does not meet his payments, they can repay themselves
finely in this way. I get a strange merchant to go and buy that man’s goods to
the amount of a hundred gulden or so, and say: “When you have bought all his
goods, promise him cash or refer him to a certain man who owes you money; and
when you have the goods bring him to me, as though I owed you money and act as
though you did not know that he is in my debt; thus I shall be paid and will
give him nothing.” That is called “finance” and ruins the poor man entirely
together with all whom he may owe; but so it goes in this unchristian borrowing
and lending.
Again,
they have learned to store their goods in places where they increase in bulk.
They put pepper, ginger and saffron in damp cellars or vaults so that they may
gain in weight; woolen goods, silks, furs of martin and sable, they sell in
dark vaults or booths, keeping them from the air, and this custom is so general
that almost every kind of goods has its own kind of air, and there are no goods
that some way is not known of taking advantage of the buyer, in the measure or
the count or the yard or the weight. They know, too, how to give them a false
color; or the best looking are put top and bottom and the worst in the middle.
Of such cheating there is no end and no merchant dare trust another out of his
sight and reach.
Now the merchants make great
complaint about the nobles or robbers – saying that they have to transact
business at great risk and are imprisoned and beaten and taxed and robbed. If
they suffered all this for righteousness’ sake the merchants would surely be
saints because of their sufferings. To be sure, it may happen that one of them
suffers some wrong before God, in that he has to suffer for another in whose
company he is found and pay for another man’s sins; but because of the great
wrong that is done and the unchristian thievery and robbery that is practiced
by the merchants themselves all over the world, even against one another, what
wonder is it if God causes this great wealth, wrongfully acquired, to be lost
or taken by robbers, and the merchants themselves to be beaten over the head or
imprisoned besides? God must administer justice, for He has Himself called a
righteous Judge.
Not
that I would excuse the highwayman and bushwhackers or approve of their
thievery! It is the princes’ duty to keep the roads safe for the sake of the
wicked as well as of the good; it is also the duty of the princes to punish
unfair dealing and to protect their subjects against the shameful skinning of
the merchants. Because they fail to do it, God uses the knights and the robbers
to punish the wrongdoing of the merchants, and they have to be His devils, as
He plagues
Of
the companies I ought to say much, but that whole subject is such a bottomless
abyss of avarice and wrong that there is nothing in it that can be discussed
with a clear conscience. For what man is so stupid as not to see that companies
are nothing else than mere monopolies? Even the temporal law of the heathen
forbids them as openly injurious, to say nothing of the divine law and
Christian statutes. They have all commodities under their control and practice
without concealment all the tricks that have been mentioned; they raise and
lower prices as they please and oppress and ruin all the small merchants, as
the pike the little fish in the water, just as though they were lords over
God’s creatures and free from all the laws of faith and love.
So
it comes that all over the world spices must be bought at their price, which is
alternating. This year they put up the price of ginger, next year of saffron,
or vice versa, so that all the time the bend may be coming to the crook and
they need suffer no losses and take no risks. If the ginger spoils or fails,
they make it up on saffron and vice versa, so that they remain sure of their
profit. All this is against the nature, not only of merchandise, but of all temporal
goods, which God wills should be subject to risk and uncertainty. But they have
found a way to make sure, certain, and perpetual profit out of insecure,
unsafe, temporal goods, though all the world must be
sucked dry and all the money sink and swim in their gullet.
How
could it ever be right and according to God’s will that a man should in a short
time grow so rich that he could buy out kings and emperors? But they have
brought things to such a pass that the whole world must do business at a risk
and at a loss, winning this year and losing next year, while they always win,
making up their losses by increased profits, and so it is no wonder that they
quickly seize upon the wealth of all the world, for a pfennig that is permanent
and sure is better than a gulden that is temporary and uncertain. But these
companies trade with permanent and sure gulden, and we with temporary and
uncertain pfennigs. No wonder they become kings and we beggars!
Public supervision with business
Kings and princes ought to look into
these things and forbid them by strict laws, but I hear that they have an
interest in them, and the saying of Isaiah is fulfilled, “Thy princes have
become companions of thieves.” They hang thieves who have stolen a gulden or
half a gulden and trade with those who rob the whole world and steal more than
all the rest, so that the proverb may hold true: Big thieves hang the little
ones, and as the Roman senator Cato said: Simple thieves lie in prisons and in
stocks; public thieves walk abroad in gold and silk. But what will God say to
this at last? He will do as He says by Ezekiel; princes and merchants, one
thief with another, He will melt them together like lead and brass, as when a
city burns, so that there shall be neither princes nor merchants anymore. That
time, I fear, is already at the door. We do not think of amending our lives, no
matter how great our sin and wrong may be, and He cannot leave wrong
unpunished.
No
one need ask, then, how he can belong to the companies with a good conscience.
The only advice to give him is: Let them alone, they will not change. If the
companies are to stay, right and honesty must perish; if right and honesty are
to stay, the companies must perish. “The bed is too narrow,” says Isaiah, “one
must fall out; the cover is too small, it will not cover both.”
I
know full well that this book of mine will be taken ill, and perhaps they will
throw it all to the winds and remain as they are; but it will not be my fault,
for I have done my part to show how richly we have deserved it if God shall
come with a rod. If I have instructed a single soul and rescued it from the
jaws of avarice, my labor will not have been in vain, though I hope, as I have
said above, that this thing has grown so high and so heavy that it can no
longer carry its own weight and they will have to stop at last.
Finally,
let everyone look to himself. Let no one stop as a favor or a service to me,
nor let anyone begin or continue to spite me or to cause me pain. It is your
affair, not mine. May God enlighten us and strengthen us to do His good will.
Amen.
A TREATISE ON USURY -
1524
Covetousness
First . It should be known that
in our times (of which the Apostle Paul prophesied that they would be perilous)
avarice and usury have not only taken a mighty hold in all the world, but have
undertaken to seek certain cloaks under which they would be considered right
and could thus practice their wickedness freely, and things have gone almost so
far that we hold the holy Gospel as of no value. Therefore, it is necessary, in
this perilous time, for everyone to see well to himself, and in dealing with
temporal goods, to make true distinctions and diligently to observe the holy
Gospel of Christ our Lord.
Three right methods
Second . It should be known that
there are three different degrees and ways of dealing well and rightly with
temporal goods.
The first
The
first is that if anyone takes some of our temporal goods by force, we shall not
only permit it, and let the goods go, but even be ready to let him take more,
if he will. Of this our dear Lord Jesus Christ says, in Matthew
Warning
It is true, indeed, that He said to
the servant Malchus, who struck Him, “If I have spoken evil, prove the evil;
but if well, why smitest thou me?” Some even of the learned stumble at these
words, and think that Christ did not offer the other cheek, as He taught that
men should do. But they do not look at the words rightly; for in these words
Christ does not threaten, does not avenge Himself, does not strike back, does
not even refuse the other cheek; nay, He does not judge or condemn Malchus, but
as Peter writes of Him, He did not threaten, or think to recompense evil, but
committed it to God, the just Judge, as if to say, “If I have spoken rightly or
you are right in smiting me, God will find it out, and you are bound to prove it.”
So Zechariah said, when they killed him, Videat dominus et
judicet, “God will see it and judge.” So He did also before Pilate, when He
said, “He that hath given me over to thee hath a greater sin than thou.” For
that is Christian and brotherly fidelity, to terrify him, and hold his
wrongdoing and God’s judgment before him who does you wrong; and it is your
duty to say to him, “Well, then, you are taking my coat and this and that; if
you are doing right, you will have to answer for it.” This you must do, not
chiefly because of your own injury, and also not to threaten him, but to warn
him and remind him of his own ruin. If that does not change his purpose, let go
what will, and do not demand it back again. See, that is the meaning of the
word that Christ spoke before the court of Annas. It follows that, like Christ
on the cross, you must pray for him and do well to him who does evil to you.
But this we leave now until the proper time.
Counsels or binding commands
Many think that this first degree is
not commanded
and need not be observed by every Christian, but is a good counsel, laid upon the perfect for them
to keep just as virginity and chastity are counseled, not commanded. Therefore
they hold it proper that everyone shall take back what is his own, and repel
force with force according to his ability and his knowledge; and they deck out
this opinion with pretty flowers, and prove it, as they think, with many strong
arguments; namely, First, the canon law (to say nothing of the temporal) says,
Vim vi pellere jura sinunt, that is, “The law allows that force be resisted
with force.” From this comes, in the second place, the common proverb about self-defense, that it is not
punishable for what it does. In the third place, they bring up some
illustrations from the Scriptures, such as Abraham and David and many more, of whom we read that they punished and repaid their enemies. In
the fourth place, they bring in Reason, and say, Solve istud (explain that); if
this were a commandment, it would give the wicked permission to steal, and at
last no one would keep anything; nay, no one would be sure of his own body. In
the fifth place, in order that everything may be firmly proved, they bring up
the saying of
I have the right to …
See, these are the masterpieces with
which the doctrine and example of our dear Lord Jesus Christ, together with the
holy Gospel and all His martyrs and saints, have hitherto been turned around,
made unknown, and entirely suppressed, so that nowadays those spiritual and
temporal prelates and subjects are the best Christians who follow these rules,
and yet resist Christ’s life, teaching, and Gospel. Hence it comes
that lawsuits and litigations, notaries, officia1es, jurists, and that whole
noble race, are as numerous as flies in summer. Hence it comes that there is so
much war and bloodshed among Christians. Suits must also be carried to
Gods law versus secular laws
Therefore, I want to do my part and,
so far as I can, to warn everyone not to be led astray, no matter how learned,
how mighty, how spiritual, or how much of all these things at once, they may be
who have made, and still make
a counsel out of this decree, no matter how many are the flowers
and the colors with which they decorate it. No excuses help! This is simply a commandment that we are
bound to obey, as Christ and His saints have confirmed it and
exemplified it. God does not
care that the laws – spiritual or temporal – permit force to be resisted with
force.
And
are not those precious things that the laws permit! They permit common
brothels, though they are against God’s commandment,
and many other wicked things which God forbids; and they have to permit secret
sin and wickedness. The things that human laws command and
forbid matter little; how much less the things that they permit or do not
punish. Thus self-defense is before the human law unpunishable, but
before God it has no merit. Suing at law is condemned by neither pope nor
emperor, but it is condemned by Christ and His doctrine. That some of the Old
Testament fathers punished their enemies was never due to their own choice in
the matter, and it was never done without God’s express command, which punishes
sinners, and punishes, at times, both good and bad, angels and men. For this
reason they never sought revenge or their own profit, but only acted as
obedient servants of God, just as Christ teaches in the Gospel that at God’s
command we must act even against father and mother, whom He has commanded us to
honor. Nevertheless, the two
commandments are not contradictory, but the lower is ruled by the higher.
When God commands you to take revenge or to defend yourself, then you shall do
it; and not before then.
Babies
Nevertheless,
it is true that God has instituted the worldly sword and the spiritual power of
the Church, and has commanded both kinds of rulers to punish the evil and
rescue the oppressed, as Paul teaches in Romans 13:3, and Isaiah in many
places, and Psalm 82:3. But this should be done in such a way that no one would
be an accuser in his own case, but that others, in their brotherly fidelity and
their care for one another, would tell the rulers that this man was innocent
and that man wrong. Thus the authorities would resort to punishment in a just
and orderly way, on proof furnished by the others; indeed, the offended party
ought to ask that his case be not tried, and ought to do his best to prevent
it. The others, for their part, ought not to desist until the evil was
punished.
Thus
things would be conducted in a kindly, Christian and brotherly way, with more
regard to the sin than to the injury. Therefore Paul rebukes the Corinthians,
in 1 Corinthians
Christianity is suffering
Christ gave this commandment in
order to establish within us a peaceful, pure, and heavenly life. Now for
everyone to demand what is his and be unwilling to endure wrong, that is not
the way to peace, as those blind men think of whom it is said, in Psalm 13:1, “They know not the way to peace,”
which goeth only through suffering. The heathen, too, know this
by Reason, and we by daily experience. If peace is to be kept, one party must be quiet and suffer;
and even though quarrels and litigations last for a long while, they must
finally come to an end, after injuries and evils that would not have been, if
people had kept this commandment of Christ’s at the start and had not allowed
the temptation, with which God tries us, to drive them from the commandment and
overcome them. God has so ordered things that he who will not let a little go
because of the commandment, must lose much, perhaps everything, through
lawsuits and war. It is fair that a man should give to the judges, proctors,
and clerks, and receive no thanks for it, twenty or thirty or forty gulden in
serving the devil, when he will not let his neighbor, for God’s sake and for
his own eternal credit, have two gulden, or six. Thus he loses both his
temporal and eternal goods, when, if he were obedient to God, he might have
enough for both time and eternity. It happens, at times, that in this way great lords must lose a whole land in war and
consume great sums of money on soldiers for the sake of a small advantage or a
small liberty. That is the perverted wisdom of the world; it fishes with golden
nets and the cost is greater than the profit; there are those who win the
little and squander the much.
Sanctification
It would be impossible to become
pure of our attachment to temporal goods, if God did not decree that we should
be unjustly injured, and exercised thereby in turning our hearts away from the
false temporal goods of the world, letting them go in peace, and setting our
hopes on the invisible and eternal goods. Therefore he who requires that which
is his own, and does not let the cloak go after the coat is resisting his own
purification and the hope of eternal salvation, for which God would exercise
him and to which He would drive him. And even though everything were taken from
us, there is no reason to fear that God will desert us and not provide for us
even in temporal matters; as it is written in Psalm 37:25, “I have been young
and have grown old, and have never seen that the righteous was deserted or his
children went after bread.” This is proved in the case of Job also, who
received in the end more than he had before, though all that he had was taken
from him. For, to put it
briefly, these commandments are intended to loose us from the world and make us
desirous of heaven. Therefore we ought peacefully and joyfully to accept the
faithful counsel of God, for if He did not give it, and did not let wrong and
unhappiness come to us, the human heart could not maintain itself; it entangles
itself too deeply in temporal things and attaches itself to them too tightly,
and the result is satiety and disregard of the eternal goods in heaven.
So
much for the first degree of dealing with temporal goods! It is also the
foremost and the greatest, and yet, sad to say! it has
not only become the least, but it has come to nothing and, amid the mists and
clouds of human laws, practices and customs, has become quite unknown.
Now comes the second degree
It is that
we give our goods freely to everyone who needs them or asks for them. Of this also our Lord Jesus Christ speaks in Matthew
5, “He who asks of thee, to him give.” Although this degree is much lower than
the first, it is, nevertheless, hard and bitter for those who have more taste
for the temporal than for the eternal goods; for they have not enough trust in
God to believe that He can or will maintain them in this wretched life.
Therefore, they fear that they would die of hunger or be entirely ruined if
they were to do as God commands, and give to everyone that asks them. How,
then, can they trust Him to maintain them in eternity? For, as Christ says, “He
who does not trust God in a little thing never trusts
Him in a great.” And yet they go about thinking that God will make them
eternally blessed, and believing that they have good confidence in Him, though
they will not heed this commandment of His, by which He would exercise them,
and drive them to learn to trust Him in things temporal and eternal. There is
reason to fear, therefore, that he who will not hear the doctrine and obey it
will never acquire the art of trusting, and as they do not trust God for the
little temporal goods, so they must at last despair about those that are great
and eternal.
Social care
This second degree is so small a
thing that it was commanded even to the simple, imperfect people of the Jews,
in the Old Testament, as it is written in Deuteronomy 15:4, “There will always
be poor people in the land, therefore I command thee
that thou open thy hand to thy poor and needy brother, and give to him.”
Besides, He commanded them severely that they must allow no one to beg, and
says, in Deuteronomy 15:4, “There shall be no beggar or indigent man among
you.” Now if God gave this
commandment in the Old Testament, how much more ought we Christians be bound
not only to allow no one to suffer want or to beg, but also to keep the first
degree of this commandment, and let everything go that anyone will take from us
by force. Now, however, there is so much begging that it has even
become an honor; and it is not enough that men of the world beg, but the
spiritual estate of the priesthood practices it as a precious thing. I will
quarrel with no one about it, but I consider that it would be more fitting that
there should be no more begging in Christendom under the New Testament, than
among the Jews under the Old Testament; and I hold that the spiritual and
temporal rulers would be discharging their duty if they did away with all the
beggars’ sacks. Twelfth .
Helping the weakest
There are three practices or customs
among men that are opposed to this degree of dealing. The first is that men
give and present things to their friends, the rich and powerful, who do not
need them, and forget the needy; and if they thus obtain favor, advantage, or
friendship from these people, or are praised by them as pious folk, they go
carelessly along, satisfied with the praise, honor, favor, or advantage that
comes from men, and do not observe, meanwhile, how much better it would be if
they did these things to the needy, and obtained God’s favor, praise, and
honor.
Of
such men Christ says, “If thou make a midday or an evening meal, thou shalt not
invite thy friends or thy brethren, or thy relatives, or thy neighbors, or the
rich, so that they may invite thee again, and thus take thy reward; but when
thou makest a meal, invite the poor, the sick, the lame, the blind; so art thou
blessed, for they cannot recompense it to thee; but it shall be recompensed to
thee among the righteous, when they rise from the dead.” Although this doctrine
is so clear and plain that everyone sees and knows that it ought to be so, yet
we never see an example of it among Christians anymore. There is neither measure nor limit
to the entertaining, the high living, the eating, drinking, giving, presenting;
and yet they are all called good people and Christians, and nothing comes out
of it except that giving to the needy is forgotten. O what a horrible judgment
will fall upon these carefree spirits, when it is asked, at the Last Day, to
whom they have given and done good!
Helping enemies and adversaries
The second custom is that people
refuse to give to enemies and
opponents. For it comes hard to our false nature to do good to those who have done it evil. But that does not help.
The commandment is spoken for all men alike, “Give to him that asketh,” and it
is clearly expressed in Luke 6:30, “To everyone that asketh of thee, give.”
Here no exception is made of enemies or opponents; nay, they are included, as
the Lord Himself makes clear in the same passage, and says,
“If ye love only those that love you, what kind of a benevolence is that? The
wicked, too, love those that love them. And if ye do good only to those that
love you, what kind of a benevolence is that? The
wicked also do that. But ye shall love your enemies, ye shall do good, ye shall lend to them and expect nothing from it; so
shall your reward be great, and ye shall be children of the Highest, for He is
kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” These wholesome commandments of Christ
have so fallen into disuse that men not only do not keep them, but have made of them a “counsel,” which
one is not necessarily bound to keep, just as they have done with
the first degree. They have been helped in this by those injurious teachers who
say that it is not necessary to lay aside the signa rancoris, that is, the
signs of enmity, and bitter, angry attitudes toward an enemy, but that it is
enough to forgive him in one’s heart. Thus they apply Christ’s commandment
about external works to the thoughts alone, though He Himself extends it, in
clear words, to works, saying, “Ye shall do good (not merely think good) to
your enemies.” So, too, in Romans 12:20, Paul, in agreement with King Solomon,
says, “If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for
thereby thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head”; that is, you will load him
with benefits, so that, overcome with good, he will be kindled to love for you.
From these false doctrines has sprung the common saying, “I will forgive, but
not forget.” Not so, dear Christian! You must forgive and forget, as you desire
that God shall not only forgive and forget, but also do you more good than before.
People before buildings
The third custom is pretty and
showy, and does most injury to this giving. It is dangerous to speak of it, for
it concerns those who ought to be teaching and ruling others, and these are the
folk who, from the beginning of the world to its end, can never hear the truth
or suffer others to hear it. The way things now go, they apply the high title
of “alms,” or “giving for God’s sake,” to giving for churches, monasteries,
chapels, altars, towers, bells, organs, paintings, statues, silver and gold
ornaments and vestments, and for masses, vigils, singing, reading, testamentary
endowments, sodalities, and the like. Giving has taken hold here, and the real
stream of giving is on this side, to which men have guided it and where they
wanted to have it; no wonder, therefore, that on the side to which Christ’s
word guides it, things are so dry and desolate that where there are a hundred
altars or vigils, there is not one man who feeds a tableful of poor people, let
alone gives food to a poor household. Not what Christ has commanded, but what
men have invented, is called “Giving for God’s sake”; not what one gives to the needy living members of
Christ, but what one gives to stone, wood, and paint is “alms.”
And this giving has become so precious and noble that God Himself is not enough
to recompense it, but has to have the help of breves, bulls, parchments, lead,
metal, cords large and small, and wax, green, yellow and white. If it makes no
show, it has no value; and it is all bought at great cost, “for God’s sake,”
from Rome, and such great works are rewarded with indulgences, here and there,
over and above the reward of God; but giving to the poor and needy, according
to Christ’s commandment, this miserable work must be robbed of such splendid
reward, and be satisfied with the reward that God gives.
Thus
the latter work is pushed to the rear and the former is put out in front and
the two, when compared, shine with unequal light. Therefore, St. Peter of Rome
must now go begging throughout the world for the building of his church, and
gather great heaps of “alms for God’s sake,” and pay for them dearly and richly
with indulgences. And this work suits him well, and he can easily attend to it,
because he is dead; for if he were alive, he would have to preach Christ’s
commandments and could not attend to the indulgences. His lambs follow
diligently after their faithful shepherd, go about with the indulgences in
every land, and wherever there is a dedication-day or a fair these beggars
gather like flies in summer, and they all preach the same song, “Give to the
new building that God may recompense you, and the holy lord, St. Nicholas.”
Afterwards they go to their beer or wine, also “for God’s sake”; and the
commissaries are made rich, also “for God’s sake.” But there is no need for
commissaries or legates to preach to us that we shall give to the needy
according to God’s commandment.
Just distribution of money gifts
What shall we say to this? If we
reject these works, the Holy See at
Local government and responsibility
Pope, bishops, kings, princes and
lords ought to labor for the abolition of these intolerable burdens and
impositions. It ought to be established and decreed, either by their own
mandate or in a general council, that every town and village should build its
own churches and care for its own poor folk, so that beggary would cease
entirely, or at least that it would not be done in such a way that any place
should beg for its churches and its poor in all other cities, according to the
present unhappy custom; and the Holy See at Rome ought to be left to enjoy its
own bulls, for it has enough else to do, if it will perform its office, without
selling bulls and building churches that it does not need. God has expressed it
plainly in His law, in Deuteronomy
Poor apologies
A device has been invented which
teaches in a masterly way, how this commandment can be circumvented and the
Holy Ghost deceived. It is, “No one is bound to give the needy unless they are
in extreme want.”
Besides,
they have reserved the right to investigate and decide what “extreme want” is. Thus
we learn that no one is to give or help until the needy are dying of hunger,
freezing to death, ruined by poverty, or running away because of debts. But this
knavish gloss and deceitful addition is confounded with a single word which
says, “What thou wilt that another do to thee, that do thou also.” Now no one
is so foolish as to be unwilling that anyone should give to him until the soul
is leaving his body or he has run away from his debts, and then help him, when
he can no more be helped. But when it comes to churches, endowments,
indulgences and other things that God has not commanded, then no one is so keen
or so careful in reckoning out whether we are to give to the church before the
tiles fall off the roof, the beams rot, the ceiling fall in, the
dispensationletters mold, the indulgences decay – though all these things could
wait more easily than people who are in need – but in these cases every hour is
one of “extreme want,” even though all the chests, and the floor itself, were
full, and everything well-built. Nay, in this case treasure must be gathered
without ceasing, not to be given or lent to the needy on earth, but to the Holy
Cross, to our Dear Lady, to the holy patron, St. Peter, though they are in
heaven. All this must be done with more than ordinary foresight, so that if the
Last Day never came, the church would be taken care of for a hundred or two
hundred thousand years; and thus, in case of need, the canonization of a saint,
or a bishop’s pallium, or other like wares can be bought at the fair in
It
would grieve one to the heart, if these damned goods, taken from the needy, to
whom they properly belong, were spent for anything else than Roman wares. St.
Ambrose and Paulinus, in former times, melted the chalices and everything that
the churches had, and gave to the poor. Turn the page, and you find how things
are now. Well for you, dear
The third degree
We come now
to the third degree of dealing with temporal goods. It is that we willingly and
gladly lend without charges or interest.
Of
this our Lord Jesus Christ says, in Matthew
Boundless assistance
Christ, however, excluded no one
from His commandment; nay, He included all kinds of people, even one’s enemies,
when He said, in Luke 6:34, “If ye lend only to those of whom ye expect that
they will make return, what kind of benevolence is that? Even wicked sinners
lend one to another that they may have the same again”; and also “Ye shall lend
and expect nothing in return.” I know very well that very many doctores have
interpreted these words as though Christ had commanded to lend in such a way as
not to make any charge for it or seek any profit by it, but to lend gratis.
This opinion is, indeed, not wrong, for he who makes a charge for lending is
not lending and neither is he selling; it must therefore be usury, because
lending is, in its very nature, nothing else than to offer another something
without charge, on the condition that one get back, after awhile, the same
thing, or its equivalent, and nothing more. But if we look the word of Christ
squarely in the eye, it does not teach that we are to lend without charge, for
there is no need for such teaching, since there is no lending except lending
without charge, and if a charge is made, it is not a loan. He wills that we
lend not only to friends, the rich, and those to whom we are well disposed, who
can repay us again, by returning this loan, or with another loan, or by some
other benefit; but also that we lend to those who cannot or will not repay us,
such as the needy and our enemies. It is just like His teaching about loving
and giving; our lending is to
be done without selfishness and without self-seeking. This does not happen
unless we lend to our enemies and to the needy; for all that He says
is aimed to teach us to do good to everyone, that is, not only to those who do
good to us, but also to those who do us evil, or cannot do us good in return.
That is what He means when He says, “Ye shall lend and expect nothing from it,”
that is, “Ye shall lend to those who cannot or will not lend to you again.” But
he who lends expects to receive back the same thing that he lends, and if he
expects nothing, then, according to their interpretation, it would be a gift
and not a loan. Because, then, it is such a little thing to make a loan to one
who is a friend, or rich, or who may render some service in return, that even
sinners who are not Christians do the same thing, Christians ought to do more,
and lend to those who do not the same, i.e., to the needy and to their enemies.
Thus, too, the doctrine falls which says that we are not bound to lay aside the
signa rancoris, as has been said above; and even though they speak rightly
concerning lending, yet they turn this commandment into a counsel and teach us
that we are not bound to lend to our enemies or to the needy, unless they are
in extreme want. Beware of this!
Refusing financial speculation
It follows that they are all usurers
who lend their neighbor wine, grain, money, or the like, in such a way that he
obligates himself to pay charges on it in a year or at a given time; or that he
burdens and overloads himself with a promise to give back more than he has
borrowed, or something else that is better. And in order that these men may
themselves perceive the wrong that they are doing – though the practice has,
unfortunately, become common – we set before them three laws.
First,
This passage in the Gospel commands that we shall
lend. Now lending is not
lending unless it be done without charge and without advantage to the lender,
as has been said. Crafty avarice, to be sure, sometimes paints itself a pretty
color and pretends to take the surplus as a present, but that does not help if
the present is the cause of the loan; or if the borrower would rather not make
the present, provided he could borrow gratis. And the present is especially
suspicious, if the borrower makes it to the lender, or the needy to the
wealthy; for it is not natural to suppose that the needy would make a present
to the wealthy of his own free will; it is necessity that forces him to do so.
Second,
This is contrary to the natural law, which the Lord
also announces in Luke
Third,
It is also against the Old and the New Law, which
commands, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” But such lenders love
themselves alone, seek only their own, or do not love and seek their neighbor
with such fidelity as they love and seek themselves.
Christian charity as guiding principle
Therefore
no better or briefer instruction can be given about this, and about all dealing
with temporal goods, than that everyone who is to have dealings with his
neighbor set before him these commandments, “Whatsoever thou wilt that another
do to thee, that do thou to him also,” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself.” If, beside this, he were to think what he would have for himself, if
he were in his neighbor’s place, he would learn for himself and find for
himself all that he needs to know.
There
would be no need for law books or courts or accusation; nay, all the cases
would be quickly and simply decided. For everyone’s heart and conscience would tell him how he would
like to be dealt with, what he would like to have remitted, what
given and what forgiven, and from this he must conclude that he ought to do
just that for everyone else. But because we leave these commandments out of
view, and look only at the business, and its profit or loss, we must have all
the countless books, courts, judges, law suits, blood, and all misery, and
thus, upon the violation of God’s commandments, must follow the destruction of
God’s kingdom, which is peace and unity, in brotherly love and faithfulness.
And yet these wicked men go about, begging at times and fasting, giving alms at
times, but in this matter, on which salvation depends, they are quite heedless
and carefree, as if this commandment did not concern them at all, though without it they cannot be saved,
even if they did all the other works of all the saints.
Unrealistic and impossible
Here we meet two objections. The
first is that if lending were done in this way, the interest would be lost,
that is, the profit which they could make meanwhile with the goods that were
lent. The second is the great example. Everywhere in the world it has become
the custom to lend for profit, and especially because scholars, priests,
clergy, and churches do it, seeing that the improvement of the church’s
spiritual goods and of the worship of God is sought, and without these there
would be very few Christians in the world, and everyone would be reluctant to
lend.
Answer.
There is nothing in all of that. In the first place, you must lose the interest
and the profit if it be taken from you or if you give to someone outright; why,
then, will you seek it and keep it in lending? He who decides to give and lend
must give up the interest in advance, or it is neither giving nor lending. In
the second place, whether it
is a good custom or a bad custom, it is not Christian or divine or natural, and
no example helps against that fact. For it is written, “Thou
shalt not follow the crowd to do evil, but honor God and His commandments above
all things.” That the clergy and the churches do this is so much the worse. For
spiritual goods and churches have neither authority nor freedom to break God’s
commandments, rob their neighbor, practice usury, and do wrong. Moreover, the
service of God is not improved by it, but corrupted.
Keeping God’s commandments is
improving the service of God; even knaves can improve the church
property; and even if the
whole world had the custom of lending with this kind of a charge, the churches
and the clergy should act the other way, and the more spiritual
their possessions were, the more Christian should be the manner in which,
according to Christ’s command, they would lend them, give them, and let them
go. He who does otherwise, is doing so, not for the
improvement of the churches or of their spiritual goods, but for his own
usury-seeking avarice, which decks itself out with such good names. It is no
wonder, then, that Christians are few; for here we see who they are that
practice really good works, though many blind and deceive themselves with their
own selfchosen good works, which God has not commanded them. But if anyone
finds that this makes it hard for him to lend to his neighbor, it is a sign of
his great unbelief, because he despises the comforting assurance of Christ, who
says, “If we lend and give, we are children of the Highest, and our reward is
great.” He who does not believe this comforting promise and does not make it a
guide for his works, is not worthy of it.
PART TWO ON USURY
Beneath these three degrees are
other degrees and ways of dealing with temporal goods, such as buying,
inheriting, conveying, etc., and these are governed by temporal and spiritual
law. By these no one becomes better or worse in the sight of God, for there is
no Christian merit in buying anything, getting it by inheritance, or acquiring
it in some other honest way, since the heathen, Turks, and Jews can be this
good.
But
Christian dealing and the
right use of temporal goods consist in the three above-mentioned degrees or
ways – giving them away, lending them without charge, and quietly letting them
go when they are taken by force.
Buying interest
Let us now leave all the other ways
of dealing out of account, and give attention to the matter of buying,
especially the buying of
income, since this makes a pretty show and seems to be a way by
which a man can burden others without sin and grow rich without worry or
trouble. For in other dealings it is manifest to everybody if a man sells too
dear, or sells false wares, or possesses a false inheritance, or wealth that is
not his, but this slippery and newly invented business makes itself ofttimes
the pious and faithful protector of damnable greed and usury.
Although
the buying of income is now established as a proper trade and a permitted line
of business, it is, nevertheless, to be hated and opposed for many reasons.
First, because it is a new and slippery invention, especially in these last,
perilous times, where nothing good is invented anymore and the thoughts of all
men are bent upon wealth and honor and luxury, without any limit. We cannot
find any example of this business among the ancients, and Paul says of these
times that many new, wicked practices will be invented. Second, because, as
they must themselves admit, however right it is, it makes a bad show and has an
offensive outward appearance, and St. Paul bids us avoid all evil and offensive
appearances, even though the thing itself were right and proper – ab omni
spetie mala abstinete (Thessalonians ult.), “Be on your guard against every evil
appearance.” Now in this business the advantage of the buyer, or receiver of
income, is always looked upon as greater and better, and is more sought after
by everyone than that of the seller, or payer of income; and this is a sign
that the business is never conducted for the sake of the seller, but always for
the sake of the buyer, for every man’s conscience fears that it cannot be right
to buy income, but no one has any doubt that he can sell it at any risk that he
cares to take. So close does this business come to the conscience.
Contrary to nature and Christian charity
This business, even though it be conducted without usury, can scarcely be conducted
without violation of the
natural law and the Christian law of love. For it is to be
supposed that the buyer never, or very seldom, seeks and desires the welfare
and advantage of his neighbor, the seller, more than or equally with his own,
especially if the buyer is the richer man and does not need to buy. And yet the
natural law says, What we wish and desire for ourselves, we shall wish and
desire for our neighbor also; and it is the nature of love, as St. Paul says in
1 Corinthians 13:5, not to seek its own profit or advantage, but that of
others. But who believes that, in this business, anyone buys income (unless he
absolutely needs it) with a view to giving his neighbor, the seller, a profit
and advantage equal to his own? Thus it is to be feared that the buyer would
not like to be in the seller’s place, as in other kinds of trade.
Everyone
must admit that whether this business be usury or not, it does exactly the same
work that usury does; that is to say, it lays burdens upon all lands, cities,
lords, and people, sucks them dry and brings them to ruin, as no usury could
have done. We see this plainly in the case of many cities and principalities.
Now the Lord taught, not that the fruit is to be known by the tree, but the
tree by the fruit. Thus I cannot possibly think you a sweet fig-tree, when you
bear nothing but sharp thorns, and I cannot reconcile the claim that this
buying of incomes is right with the fact that land and people are ruined by it.
Let
us imagine, then, or dream, or force ourselves to think that this business is
right, as it is now conducted; nevertheless, it deserves that pope, bishops,
emperor, princes and everybody else endeavor to have it abolished, and it is
the duty of everyone who can prevent it to do so, if only on account of its
wicked and damnable fruits, which burden and ruin the whole world.
Legal but sinful
Therefore it is not enough that this
business should be rescued by canon law from the reproach of usury, for that
does not rid it of or secure it against avarice and
self-love; and from the canon law we find that it is not directed toward love,
but toward self-seeking. Money
won by gambling is not usury either, and yet it is not won without self-seeking
and love of self, and not without sin; the profits of prostitution are not
usury, but they are earned by sin; and wealth that is acquired by cursing,
swearing and slander is not usury, and yet it is acquired by sin. Therefore
I cannot conclude that those who buy income which they do not need are acting
rightly and properly. I make bold to say and give warning that the rich, who
use this business only to increase their incomes and their wealth, are in great
danger. Moreover, I do not think it permissible to act as do some avaricious
fellows (Geytzige blasen), who collect their incomes at stated times, and
quickly invest it again in income – so that the one income always drives the
other along, as water drives the millwheel. This is such open and shameless
avarice that no man, however stupid, can deny that it is avarice; and yet all
that is held to be right. If there were no other reason to regard this buying
of income as usury or as wrong dealing (especially in such a case as I have
mentioned), this one reason would be enough, viz., that it is a cloak for such
manifest and shameless avarice, and allows men to do business without risk. Whatever is of God avoids sin and
every kind of evil; but this business gives avarice free rein; therefore it
cannot be of God, as it is now conducted.
The concept
of ”interesse”
We will now look at the arguments by
which this tender business is justified. There is a little Latin word called interesse. This noble,
precious, tender, little word may be rendered in German this way: If I have a
hundred gulden with which I can trade, and by my labor and trouble make in a
year five or six gulden or more, I place it with someone else, on a productive
property, so that not I, but he, can trade with it, and for this I take from
him five gulden, which I might have earned; thus he sells me the income – five
gulden for a hundred – and I am the buyer and he the seller. Here they say,
now, that the purchase of the income is proper because, with these gulden, I
might perhaps have made more in a year, and the interest is just and
sufficient. All that is so pretty that no one can find fault
with it at any point. But it is also true that it is not possible to
have such interest on earth, for there is another, counter-interest, which goes
like this: If I have a hundred gulden, and am to do business with it, I may run
a hundred kinds of risk of making no profits at all, nay, of losing four times
as much besides. Because of the money itself, or because of illness, I may not
be able to do business, or there may be no wares or goods on hand. Hindrances
of this kind are innumerable, and we see that failures, losses, and injuries
are greater than profits. Thus the interest on loss is as great as the interest
of profits, or greater.
Safe profit
Now if income is bought on the first
kind of interest only, so that these risks and the trouble are not assumed, and
it can never happen that the buyer loses more than he invests, and thus the
money is invested as though all of it could always be without the other
interest, then it is clear that the trade is based on nothing, because there
cannot be any such interest, and it cannot be invented. For in this business,
goods are always on hand, and one can transact it sitting still; a sick man can
do it, a child, a woman; indeed, it matters not how unfit the person is, though
no such persons can engage in trade, and earn profits, with bare money.
Therefore those who regard only this kind of interest, and trade in it, are
worse than usurers; nay, they buy the first interest with the second interest,
and win in order that other people may lose. Again, since it
is not possible to regulate, compute, and equalize the second interest (for it
is not in man’s power), I do not see how this business can last. For who
would not rather invest a hundred gulden for income than trade with it, since
in trade he might lose twenty gulden in a year, and his capital besides, while
in this business he cannot lose more than five, and keeps his capital?
Moreover, in trade his money must often be inactive because of the market (Der
wahr halben), or because of his own physical condition, while in this business
it is moving and earning all the time.
Is
it any wonder, then, that a man gets control of all the wealth in the world,
when he has goods always at hand, with constant safety and less risk, and when
his capital is protected in advance? One’s profits cannot be small at times
when one can always procure goods, just as one’s losses cannot be small when
one cannot get rid of goods, or cannot procure them.
Therefore,
money in trade and money at
interest are different things, and the one cannot be compared
with the other. For money invested in income has a basis which constantly grows
and produces profit out of the earth, while money in trade has no certainty;
the interest it yields is accidental, and one cannot count on it at all. Here
they will say, perhaps, that, because they place money on land, there is an “interest
of loss,” as well as an “interest of profit,” for the income stands or falls
according as the land stays or not. This is all true, and we shall hear more
about it below. But the fact remains that money which one can place on land
increases the “first interest” too much and decreases the “second interest” as
compared with money that moves in trade; for, as was said above, there is more
risk in trade than in land. Since, then, one cannot get ground with a definite
sum of money, neither can one buy income with a definite sum.
Therefore,
it is not enough to say, “With so much money I can buy so much income from a
piece of ground, and therefore it is right for me to take so much income for it
and let someone else look after the ground.” For in that way one would assess a
piece of ground at a definite value. That is impossible, and great hardship
must result for land and people.
The nature of capital
Therefore it is no wonder that the
knights of income (Zins
junckeren) quickly become rich above others, for since the others
keep their money in trade, they are subject to the two kinds of interest, but
the knights of income, by this little trick, get out of the second interest and
come into the first; thus their risk is greatly reduced and their safety increased.
It ought, therefore, not be permitted to buy income
with cash money, without specifying and defining the particular piece of ground
from which the income is derived, as is now the custom, especially among the
great merchants, who place money on ground in general, without specification.
By so doing they ascribe to the nature of money that which is only accidental
to it. It is not in the nature of money that it buys ground, but it may happen
that a piece of ground is for sale for income when some money is at one’s
disposal; but that does not happen with all ground or with all money; therefore
the ground ought to be named and exactly defined. If that were done, it would
be evident how much money would be useless for income purposes and have to stay
in trade or in the coffers, though it now produces income with neither right
nor pretext except that one says (in a general way), “By placing it on a piece
of ground, I can buy so much income with it, and that will be interest.” Yes,
my dear fellow, my money can buy my neighbor’s house; but if it is not for
sale, the ability of my money has no effect on his interest. In the same way,
it is not the luck of all money to buy income from ground; and yet some people
want to buy income from everything that can be used. They are usurers, thieves,
and robbers, for they are selling the luck of the money, which is not theirs
and is not in their power. “Nay,” you say, “it can buy income from a piece of
ground.” I answer, It does not do so yet, and perhaps
it never will. Hans can take a Gretchen, but he has her not yet, and so he is
not yet married.
Your
money can buy income; that is half of it, but the deal depends on the rest of
it – the acceptance and the other half. But now the rich merchants want to sell
the good fortune of their money, and that without any bad fortune, and sell the
will and intentions of other people besides, because it rests with them whether
the sale can be made. That is selling the thirteenth bear-skin.
Risk capital with written agreement
I say, further, that it is not
enough that the ground be there and be named, but it must be described parcel
by parcel and the money placed on it and the income to be got from it
indicated, as, for example, the house, the garden, the meadow, the pond, the
cattle, and all this free and unsold and unencumbered. They must not play the
blind cow in the community and place a burden on the whole property. If this
provision is not made, a town, or a poor man, must be sold in a sack and
utterly ruined by the blind bargain, as we see happening now in many cities and
states. The reason is this – the trade of a city may fall off, citizens become
fewer, houses burn down, fields, meadows and all the ground run down and the
goods and the cattle of every householder grow less, more children come; or it
may be burdened with some other misfortune. Thus the wealth slips away, but the
blind bargain, made with the whole property of the community, remains. Thus the
poor and small remnant of wealth must bear the burden and expense of the whole
former lot; and this can never be right. The buyer is sure of his income and
has no risk, and this is against the nature of any real bargain; and it would
not be so, if the property were described parcel by parcel, and the income were
to fluctuate with the value of the ground, as is right.
Shared risk and insecurity
The only way of defending this
business against the charge of usury – and it would do so better than all talk
of interest – would be that the buyer of income have
the same risk and uncertainty about his income that he has about all his other
property. For with his property the receiver of income is subject to the power
of God – death, sickness, flood, fire, wind, hail, thunder, rain, wolves, wild
beasts, and the manifold losses inflicted by wicked men. All these risks should
apply to the buyer of income, for upon this, and on nothing else, his income
rests; nor has he any right to receive income for his money, unless the payer
of the income, or seller of the property, specifically agrees, and can have
free and entire and unhindered use of his own labor. This is proved from
nature, Reason, and all laws, which agree in saying that in a sale the risk
lies with the buyer, for the seller is not bound to guarantee his wares to the
buyer. Thus when I buy the income from a particular parcel of ground, I do not
buy the ground, but the labor of the seller upon the ground, by which he is to
bring me my income. I therefore take all the risk of hindrance that may come to
his labor, insofar as it does not come from his fault or neglect, whether by
the elements, beasts, men, sickness, or anything else. In these things the
seller of the income has as great interest as the buyer, so that if, after due
diligence, his labor is unprofitable, he ought and can say freely to the
receiver of the income, “This year I owe you nothing, for I sold you my labor
for the production of income from this and that property; I have not succeeded;
the loss is yours and not mine; for if you would have interest on my profits, you must also have
an interest in my losses, as the nature of a bargain requires.”
The owners of income, who will not put up with that, are just as pious as
robbers and murderers, and wrest from the poor man his property and his living.
Woe to them!
Specific buying of interest
From this it follows that the blind
trade in incomes that are based not on a designated piece of property, but on
the land of a whole community, or many properties taken together, is wrong. For
although the purchaser of income cannot show on what property the charge rests,
he has, nevertheless, no risk, never accepts the possibility that income may
fail here or there, and wants to be sure of his income. But perhaps you will
say, “If this were to be the case, who would buy income?” I answer: See there!
I
knew very well that if human nature were to do the right thing, it would turn
up its nose. Now it comes
out that in this trade in incomes the only things that are sought are safety,
avarice, and usury.
O
how many cities, lands, and people must pay these charges, when it has long
since been men’s duty to remit them! For if this risk is not
taken, the purchase of incomes is simply usury. They go on endowing
churches and monasteries and altars and this and that, and yet there is no
limit to the trade in incomes, just as though it were possible for wealth,
persons, luck, products, and labor to be alike in all years. However equal or
unequal these things may be, the charge must go on at the same rate. Ought this not ruin land and people? I am surprised that the world
still stands, with this boundless usury going on! It is thus that the world has
improved! What in earlier days was called a loan, is
now changed into the purchase of income.
The two kingdoms
The income purchase is sometimes
made in such a way that income is bought from those to whom the buyer ought to
lend or give something. That is utterly worthless, for God’s commandment stands
in the way, and it is His will that the needy shall be helped by loans or
gifts.
Again
it happens that both buyer and seller need their property, and therefore
neither of them can lend or give, but they have to help themselves with such a
bargain. If this is done without breaking the church-law which provides for the
payment of four, five, or six gulden on the hundred, it can be endured; but
respect should be always had for the fear of God, which fears to take too much
rather than too little, in order that avarice may not have its way in a decent
business deal. The smaller the percentage the more divine and Christian the
deal.
It is not my affair, however, to
point out when one ought to pay five, four, or six percent. I leave it for the law
to decide when the property is so good and so rich that one can charge six
percent. It is my opinion, however, that if we were to keep Christ’s command
about the first three degrees, the purchase of incomes would not be so common
or so necessary, except in cases where the amounts were considerable and the
properties large. But the practice has got down to groschen and pfennige and
deals with little sums that could easily be taken care of by gifts or loans in
accordance with Christ’s command. And yet they will not call this avarice.
Usury
There
are some who not only deal in little sums, but also take too
much return – seven, eight, nine, ten percent. The rulers ought to look
into this. Here the poor common people are secretly imposed upon and severely
oppressed. For this reason these robbers and usurers often die an unnatural and
sudden death, or come to a terrible end (as tyrants and robbers deserve), for
God is a judge for the poor and needy, as He often says in the Old Law.
But
then they say, “The churches and the clergy do this and have done it, because
this money is used for the service of God.” Truly if a man has nothing else to
do than to justify usury, a worse thing could not be said about him, for he
would take the innocent church and the clergy with him to the devil and lead
them into sin. Leave the name of the Church out of it, and say, “It is
usury-seeking avarice that does not like to work to earn its bread, and so
makes the name of the Church a cloak for idleness.”
Why
talk of service of God? The
service of God is to keep His commandments, so that no one
steals, robs, overreaches, or the like, but gives and lends to the needy. You
would tear down this service of God in order to build churches, endow altars,
and have mass read and prayers sung; though God has commanded none of these
things, and with your service
of God you bring the true service of God to naught. Put in the
first place the service of God that He has commanded, and let the service of
God that you have chosen for yourself come along behind. As I said above, if all the world
were to take ten percent, the church endowments should keep strictly to the
law, and take four or five, with fear; for they ought to let
their light shine, and give an example to the worldly. But they turn things
around, and would have freedom to leave God’s commandments and His service in
order to do evil and practice usury. If you would serve God your way, then
serve Him without injuring your neighbor, and without failing to keep God’s
commandments. For He says in Isaiah 61, “I am a God that loves justice and I
hate the sacrifice that is stolen.” The Wise Man also says, “Give alms of that
which is thine.” But these overcharges are stolen from your neighbor, against
God’s commandment.
Toxic church service
But if anyone is afraid that the
churches and endowments will go down, I say that it is better to take ten
endowments and make of them one that is according to the will of God, than to
keep many against God’s commandment. What good does a service do you if it is
against God’s commandment and contrary to the true serving of God? You cannot
serve God with two kinds of service that contradict one another, any more than
you can serve two masters.
There
are also some simple folk who sell these incomes without having ground or
security, or sell more than the ground can bear, and this leads to evident
ruin. This matter is very dangerous and goes so far that it is hard to say
enough about it. The best
thing would be to turn back to the Gospel, approach it, and practice Christian
dealing with goods as has been said.
There
is also in this business a dangerous tendency, from which I fear that none of
the buyers of income – at least very few of them – are free. It is that they
want their income and their property to be sure and safe, and therefore place
their money with others, instead of keeping it and taking risks. They very much
prefer that other people shall work with it and take the risks, so that they
themselves can be idle and lazy, and yet stay rich or become rich. If that is
not usury, it is very much like it. Briefly, it is against God. If you seek to
take an advantage of your neighbor which you will not let him take of you, then
love is gone and the natural law is broken. Now, I fear that, in this buying of
income, we pay little heed to the success of our neighbor, if only our income
and our property are safe, though safety is the very thing we ought not to
seek. This is certainly a sign of greed or laziness, and although it does not
make the business worse, it is, nevertheless, sin in the eyes of God.
Harsh execution
Back in Saxony and Lueneburg and Holstein, the thing
is done so crudely that it would be no wonder if one man were to devour
another.
There
they not only take nine or ten percent, or whatever they can get, but they have
also hitched a special device on to it. It goes this way – if a man lets me
have a thousand gulden for income, I have to take instead of cash money, so
many horses or cows, so much bacon, wheat, etc., that he cannot get rid of
otherwise, or cannot sell for so high a price. Thus the money that I get
amounts to scarcely half of the sum named, say, to five hundred gulden, though
the goods and the cattle are of no use to me, or may bring me in scarcely one
or two hundred gulden. These fellows are not highway robbers, but common house
thieves. What shall we say about this? These men are not men at all, but wolves
and senseless beasts, who do not believe there is a God.
Floating interest according to the Law of Moses
In a word, for all this usury and
unfair securing of income there is no better advice than to follow the law and
example of Moses. We ought to bring all these charges under the ordinance that
that which shall be taken or sold or given shall be a tithe, or in case of need a ninth, or an
eighth, or a sixth.
Thus
everything would be fair, and all depend on the grace and blessing of God. If
the tithe turned out well in any year, it would bring the creditor a large sum;
if it turned out badly, the creditor would bear the risk as well as the debtor,
and both would have to look to God. In that case, the income could not be fixed at any given amount,
nor would that be necessary, but it would always remain uncertain how much the
tithe would yield and yet the tithe would be certain.
The tithe, therefore, is the best of
all fixed charges and it has been in use since the beginning of the world, and
in the Old Law it is praised and established as the fairest of all arrangements
according to divine and natural law. By it, if the tenth did not
reach, or were not enough, one could take and sell a ninth, or fix any amount
that the land or house could stand.
Joseph
fixed the fifth as the amount to be taken, or found it so fixed and customary
in
But now that incomes are bought in
definite and certain amounts, all years are equal, good and bad alike, and land
and people must be ruined. The purchaser buys the same income for
unequal and equal years, poor years and rich years; nay, he buys a blessing
that God has not yet given for a blessing that is already given. That can never
be right, for by that means one sucks another’s sweat
and blood. Therefore it is no wonder that in the few years that the buying of
incomes has been practiced, i.e., about a hundred years, all princedoms and
lands have been impoverished and pawned and ruined.
But
if the sale or income were based, not on produce, but on houses or places that
were gained and acquired by manual labor, it could be justified by the law of
Moses, by having a “jubilee year” in these things and not selling
the income in perpetuity. For I think that, since this business is in such a
disordered state, we could
have no better examples or laws than the laws which God provided for His
people, and with which He ruled them.
He
is as wise as human Reason can be, and we need not be ashamed to keep and follow the law of the
Jews in this matter, for it is profitable and good.
Public supervision
Emperor, kings, princes and lords
ought to watch over this matter and look to their lands and peoples, to help
them and rescue them from the horrible jaws of avarice, and things would be so
much the better for them. The diets should deal with this as one of the most
necessary things, but they let this lie, and serve, meanwhile, the pope’s
tyranny, burdening lands and people more and more, until at last they must go
to destruction because the land can no longer endure them, but must spew them
out.
God give them His light and grace. Amen.