RELIGIOUS BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORALITY. 95 



with such clumsy weapons as they were most skilled in wielding, 

 looting the homesteads, uprooting and trampling down the green 

 blades of wheat and barley, which stood as representatives of the 

 growing heresy, and, with a logic peculiar to theological zealots 

 and ecclesiastical inquisitors in all ages, refuting the new doctrine 

 and resisting the reformatory movement by greater energy and 

 assiduity in the ancient and honorable calling of cattle-lifting. 



As we have already seen, the duty of a man to shield and sus- 

 tain a tribesman against an alien under all circumstances is im- 

 perative. Acts of extortion, treachery, or violence, which would 

 be punished by death if committed against a member of the same 

 tribe, are regarded as indifferent or laudable when the injured 

 person is a foreigner. The same tendency to approve or to exten- 

 uate the bad conduct of " brethren " enters also more or less into 

 the ethics of communities or collective bodies which are held 

 together by the bond of belief. 



All people in a low state of civilization have a strong preju- 

 dice against lending money on interest, and look upon all such 

 transactions as sinful. The same notion still prevails among the 

 lower classes of civilized nations, whose superstitions are in most 

 cases mere survivals of savage life. So strong is this feeling, 

 inculcated and consecrated by religious teachings and traditions, 

 that a certain stigma attaches to the money broker even in the 

 minds of otherwise intelligent persons. "Many lend money on 

 interest," says Cato, "but it is not honorable to do so. Our 

 ancestors enacted in their laws that the thief should restore two- 

 fold, but the taker of interest fourfold, from which we see how 

 much worse a usurer was thought to be than a thief." 



In general, however, usury, like every other supposed crime, 

 was regarded as wrong only when applied to kindred or tribes- 

 men. The Jews were forbidden to " take a breed of barren metal " 

 from those of their own faith, but might exact it from Gentiles. 

 Curiously enough, in the middle ages this privilege was granted 

 to the Jews, not in the spirit of favoritism, but as a necessity to 

 sovereigns and to society and from feelings of utter scorn and 

 contempt. As neither government nor trade could do without 

 this vilely esteemed vocation, the Jews were selected to carry it 

 on, because they were considered a vile people incapable alike of 

 improvement or of deeper degradation. The state and the Church, 

 which felt an interest in the spiritual welfare and safety of the 

 Christian, were wholly indifferent to the future fate of the Jew. 

 That sweet saint, Bernard of Clairvaux, surnamed the honey- 

 flowing teacher (doctor mellifluus), urged the rulers of his day to 

 tolerate the Jews, not because he hated persecution, but in order 

 that Christians might not be constrained to imperil the salvation 

 of their souls by the sin of usury. The Israelitic pariahs of me- 



