exact full wages from those, to whom they have not given just and due labour; nor are unfaithful servants and stewards any other than thieves; nay they are more detestable than other thieves, against whom every thing may be locked; whilst against a pilfering servant nothing in a house can he secure by bolt or lock. They, also, who extort money under false pretences, or by deceitful words, may be said to steal, and their guilt is aggravated by adding falsehood to theft. Persons charged with offices of public or private trust, who altogether neglect or but indifferently perform the duties, whilst they enjoy the emoluments of such offices, are also to be reckoned in the number of thieves. To detail the various other modes of theft, invented by the ingenuity of avarice, which is versed in all the arts of gleaning together the fruits of injustice, were a tedious and complicated enumeration. The pastor, therefore, will next come to treat of the other general head, to which sins prohibited by this commandment are reducible; first, however, admonishing the faithful, to bear in mind the precept of the Apostle: "They that will become rich fall into temptation, and the snare of the devil;" [1] and also the words of the redeemer: "All things whatsoever you will that men do to you, do you also to them;" [2] and finally the admonition of Tobias: " See thou never do to another what thou wouldst hate to have done to thee by another." [3]
Rapine is more comprehensive than theft: those who pay not the labourer his hire are guilty of rapine, and are exhorted to repentance by St. James in these words: " Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries which shall come upon you:" He subjoins the cause of their repentance; " Be hold," says he, " the hire of the labourers, who have reaped down your fields, which by fraud has been kept back by you, crieth; and the cry of them hath entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth." [4] This sort of rapine is condemned in terms of the strongest reprobation in Leviticus, [5] Deuteronomy, [6] Malachy, [7] and Tobias. [8] Amongst those who are guilty of rapine are also included persons who do not pay, who turn to other uses or appropriate to themselves, customs, taxes, tythes, and such revenues, which are the property of those who preside over the Church, and of the civil magistrate.
To this class also belong usurers, the most cruel and relentless of extortioners, who, by their usurious practices, plunder and destroy the poor. Whatever is received above the principal, be it money, or any thing else that may be purchased or estimated by money, is usury; for it is written in Ezekiel: " Thou hast taken usury and increase;" [9] and in Luke our Lord says: " Lend hoping for nothing thereby." [10] Even among the Gentiles usury was always considered a most grievous and odious crime; and hence the question, "What is usury?"
