Seneca, the teacher of virtue,—levied enormous taxes in the provinces, under the name of usury; and it is something remarkable, that the last defenders of the republic, the proud Pompeys, were all usurious aristocrats, and oppressors of the poor. But the battle of Pharsalus, having killed men only, without touching institutions, the encroachments of the large domains became every day more active. Ever since the birth of Christianity, the Fathers have opposed this invasion with all their might. Their writings are filled with burning curses upon this crime of usury, of which Christians are not always innocent. St. Cyprian complains of certain bishops of his time, who, absorbed in disgraceful stock-jobbing operations, abandoned their churches, and went about the provinces appropriating lands by artifice and fraud, while lending money and piling up interests upon interests.[1] Why, in the midst of this passion for accumulation, did not the possession of the public land, like private property, become concentrated in a few hands?
By law, the domain of the State was inalienable, and consequently possession was always revocable; but the edict of the prætor continued it indefinitely, so that finally the possessions of the patricians were transformed into absolute property, though the name, possessions, was still applied to them. This conversion, instigated by senatorial avarice, owed its accomplishment to the most deplorable and indiscreet policy. If, in the time of Tiberius Gracchus, who wished to limit each
- ↑ Episcopi plurimi, quos et hortamento esse oportet cæteris et exemplo, divina procuratione contempta, procuratores rerum sæularium fieri, derelicta cathedra, plebe deserta, per alienas provincias oberrantes, negotiationis quæstuosæ nundinas aucupari, esurientibus in eeclesia fratribus habere argentum largiter velle, fundos insidiosis fraudibus rapere, usuris multiplicantibus fœnus augere.—Cyprian: De Lapsis. In this passage, St. Cyprian alludes to lending on mortgages and to compound interest.
