Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

the security of its safe keeping. The recipients will have the advantage of its use. And if it
is increase which you seek, be satisfied with that which is given by the Lord. He will pay
the interest for the poor. Await the loving-kindness of Him Who is in truth most kind.
“What you are taking involves the last extremity of inhumanity. You are making your
profit out of misfortune; you are levying a tax upon tears. You are strangling the naked.
You are dealing blows on the starving. There is no pity anywhere, no sense of your kinship
to the hungry, and you call the profit you get from these sources kindly and humane! Wo
unto them that ‘put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter,’ 507 and call inhumanity humanity!
This surpasses even the riddle which Samson proposed to his boon companions:—‘Out of
the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.’ 508 Out of the inhuman
came forth humanity! Men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles, 509 nor
humanity of usury. A corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 510 There are such people as
twelve-per-cent-men and ten-per-cent-men: I shudder to mention their names. They are
exactors by the month, like the demons who produce epilepsy, attacking the poor as the
changes of the moon come round. 511
“Here there is an evil grant to either, to giver and to recipient. To the latter, it brings
ruin on his property; to the former, on his soul. The husbandman, when he has the ear in
store, does not search also for the seed beneath the root; you both possess the fruit and
cannot keep your hands from the principal. You plant where there is no ground. You reap
where there has been no sowing. For whom you are gathering you cannot tell. The man
from whom usury wrings tears is manifest enough; but it is doubtful who is destined to enjoy
the results of the superfluity. You have laid up in store for yourself the trouble that results
from your iniquity, but it is uncertain whether you will not leave the use of your wealth to
others. Therefore, ‘from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away;’ 512 and do
not give your money upon usury. Learn from both Old and New Testament what is profitable
for you, and so depart hence with good hope to your Lord; in Him you will receive the interest
of your good deeds,—in Jesus Christ our Lord to Whom be glory and might for ever and
ever, Amen.”
507 Is. v. 20.
508 Judges xiv. 14.
509 Matt. vii. 16.
510 cf. Matt. vii. 18.
511 On the connexion between σεληνιασμός and ἐπιληψία, cf. Origen iii. 575–577, and Cæsarius, Quæst. 50.
On the special attribution of epilepsy to dæmoniacal influence illustrated by the name ἱερὰ νοσος, see Hippocrates,
De Morbo Sacro.
512 Matt. v. 42.
Exegetic.
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