334 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ure witli astronomy and opposed the Copernican theory, so now 

 he mingled Scripture with political economy and denounced the 

 lending of money at interest. He called attention to the fact that 

 the Scriptures, the councils of the Church from the beginning, 

 the popes, the fathers, had all interpreted the prohibition of 

 " usury " to be a prohibition of any lending at interest ; and he 

 demonstrated this interpretation to be the true one. Simon was 

 put to confusion and his book condemned. 



There was but too much reason for Bossuet's interpretation. 

 There stood the fact that the prohibition of one of the most sim- 

 ple and beneficial principles in political and economical science 

 was aifirmed, not only by the fathers, but by twenty-eight coun- 

 cils of the Church, six of them general councils, and by seven- 

 teen popes, to say nothing of innumerable doctors in theology 

 and canon law. And these prohibitions by the Church had been 

 accepted as of divine origin by all obedient sons of the Church 

 in the Government of France. Such rulers as Charles the Bald 

 in the ninth century, and St. Louis in the thirteenth, had riveted 

 this idea into the civil law so firmly that it seemed impossible 

 ever to detach it.* 



As might well be expected, Italy was one of the countries in 

 which the theological theory regarding usance was most gen- 

 erally asserted and assented to. Among the great number of 

 Italian canonists who supported the theory, two deserve especial 

 mention, as affording a contrast to the practical manner in which 

 the commercial Italians met the question. 



In the sixteenth century, very famous among canonists was 

 the learned Benedictine, Vilagut. In 1589 he published at Venice 

 his great work on usury, supporting with much learning and 

 vigor the most extreme theological consequences of the old doc- 

 trine. He defines usury as the taking of anything beyond the 

 original loan, and declares it mortal sin ; he advocates the denial 

 to usurers of Christian burial, confession, the sacraments, abso- 

 lution, and connection with the universities; he declares that 

 priests receiving offerings from usurers should refrain from ex- 

 ercising their ministry until the matter is passed upon by the 

 bishop. 



About the middle of the seventeenth century another ponder- 



* For the declaration of the Sorbonne in the seventeenth century against any taking of 

 interest, see Lecky, Rationalism, vol. ii, p. 248, note. For the special condemnation by In. 

 Decent XI, see Damnatae Theses, Pavia, 1*715, pp. 112-114. For consideration of various 

 ways of escaping the difficulty regarding interest, see Lecky, Rationalism, vol. ii, pp. 249, 

 250. For Bossuet's strong declaration against taking interest, see (Euvres de Bossuet, 

 edition of 1845, vol. xi, p. 330, and edition of 1846, vol. ix, p. 49 et seq. For the number 

 of councils and popes who condemned usury, see Lecky, Rationalism, vol. ii, p. 255, note, 

 citing Concina. 



