### Background Early (pre Protestant Reformation) Christian writers from the 1st through 5th centuries like St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and others seem to have universally condemned usury and defined it as charging any interest on loans, not merely excessive or extortionate rates. St. Ambrose of Milan (4th c.) explicitly stated the classic definition: > “Food too is usury and clothing is usury, and **whatever is added to the capital is usury**. Whatever name you wish to put upon it, it is usury” St. Augustine (late 4th–early 5th c.) likewise defined a usurer as anyone who expects back more than he lent : > "If thou hast given the loan of thy money to one from whom thou dost expect to receive something more than thou hast given; not in money only, but anything... **if you expect to receive more than you have given, you are an usurer**, and in this are not deserving of praise, but of censure." ### Question The practice of usury has had a mixed history in the Christian Church. How do modern Protestants define it, and do they still believe it is a sin? And what do they base their definition on? For example, is usury the collection of interest at any rate on a loan? Is it the collection of excessive interest?

Is usury a form of extortion? St. Paul lists extortion among the mortal sins in 1 Cor. 6:10 : "…nor extortioners (άρπαγες, *rapaces*, "the rapacious"), shall possess the kingdom of God." Ex. 22:25 relates extortion and usury: "If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor, that dwelleth with thee, thou shalt not be hard upon them as an extortioner [*exactor*], nor oppress them with usuries."

St. Thomas Aquinas, *Summa Theologica* II-II q. 78 a. 1 co., says that usury is to sell the use of a consumable good separately from the consumable good itself: >To take usury for money lent is unjust in itself, because this is to sell what does not exist, and this evidently leads to inequality which is contrary to justice. In order to make this evident, we must observe that there are certain **things the use of which consists in their consumption**: thus we consume wine when we use it for drink and we consume wheat when we use it for food. Wherefore in such like things the use of the thing must not be reckoned apart from the thing itself, and whoever is granted the use of the thing, is granted the thing itself and for this reason, to lend things of this kin is to transfer the ownership. Accordingly if a man wanted to sell wine separately from the use of the wine, he would be selling the same thing twice, or he would be selling what does not exist, wherefore he would evidently commit a sin of injustice. On like manner he commits an injustice who lends wine or wheat, and asks for double payment, viz. one, the return of the thing in equal measure, the other, the price of the use, which is called usury. > >On the other hand, there are **things the use of which does n̲o̲t̲ consist in their consumption**: thus to use a house is to dwell in it, not to destroy it. Wherefore in such things both may be granted: for instance, one man may hand over to another the ownership of his house while reserving to himself the use of it for a time, or vice versa, he may grant the use of the house, while retaining the ownership. For this reason a man may lawfully make a charge for the use of his house, and, besides this, revendicate the house from the person to whom he has granted its use, as happens in renting and letting a house. But that explanation makes no sense to me. Just because the use of wine consists in its destruction, I do not see how this implies that the sale of the use of wine also implies the sale of the property itself. I see no significant difference between using a house as a dwelling and using wine for drinking. If the sale of the use of the house can be separated from the sale of the property itself, then the sale of the use of the wine can also be separated from the sale of the property itself.

From scripture, it would seem that the taking of interest on any loan is unjust (Leviticus 25:36–37). Most people are also familiar with the fact that usury used to be condemned by Christians. But, it would not seem right that the Church would condemn something as intrinsically evil and then later reverse that stance and say it is not intrinsically evil. And, today, no one frets about taking interest on loans as a moral issue. Therefore, has the Church's understanding of usury changed, or have we merely been ignoring the grave sin of usury? Is usury more nuanced than what we are typically taught (the taking of interest and/or the taking of an unjustly large interest on a loan)?

If I'm not wrong usury in its original biblical definition means charging **any amount** of money for lending money. So if you charge any percentage greater than zero as interest rate it must be a sin. Now my question is why is it considered a sin in Christianity? Does Christianity have a more technical and less non-religious answer for that? Like does usury hurt the economy of your country? Or what? I'm trying to understand if Christianity has an explanation to why usury is a bad practice and that's why I want a technical and non-religious answer.

According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury#Church_councils) , the First Council of Nicaea (325AD) forbade clergy, **but not laymen**, from charging interest on loans. Wikipedia also states that "later ecumenical councils applied this regulation to the laity", but the [reference](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/004056399305400404) given shows this occurred only in Catholic councils after 1150AD. The Catholics had a Lateran III council in 1179, where they totally excommunicated anyone who charged interest. To me, this implies that before 1179, there had been no ecumenical council, Catholic or Orthodox, that prohibited usury among laymen. Assuming this Wikipedia article is comprehensive, it appears that no ecumenical council ever forbade the charging of interest among laymen. However the article appears to only give the Catholic side. --- My question: Did the Eastern Orthodox church as a whole (via an ecumenical council for example) or in part (via a local council for one synod, for example), ever condemn as a sin, which required repentance or even excommunication, the act of charging interest on loans among laymen?