Usury: The Biblical Texts and Their Afterlives

This paper examines the complex biblical prohibitions of interest and usury, tracing the changes from ancient Israelite subsistence economies through to modern financial arrangements. The discussion considers the question why New Testament materials played only a minor role in the formulation of Christian distinctions between interest and usury. An historical review highlights the poor laws of Exodus, ‘sibling’ ethics in Deuteronomy, emended provisions in Leviticus 25, and also the references to interest in Ezekiel 18 and Nehemiah 5. The paper then explores the ‘afterlives’ of the biblical texts, contrasting, for example, the synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy and scripture in Thomas Aquinas and the historical innovations of John Calvin. While Aquinas maintained a moral aversion to ‘making money from money’, Calvin's distinction between usury and interest, grounded in biblical interpretation, reflects the beginnings of the secularisation of economics.