In the previous part of our series on how people have thought about money over the centuries, we analyzed how Jews have thought about money in the past. Today it is time for a topic much closer to us-Christians. Usury is not cool! As you already know from the previous section, Christians were not allowed to make interest-bearing loans, let alone usury. But where did this thinking come from? You can already read about money in the Gospel of St. Luke, for example: "If you give loans to those from whom you expect a return, what gratitude is there for you? And sinners lend to sinners, that they may receive the same. But you love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing for it." You can see in this thinking a condemnation of usury, but at the same time a praise of almsgiving. Another thing is that for Christians from the beginning, eternal life, or existence after death, was important, so thinking about money here, on earth, did not fit in very well. This can already be seen in the writings of the Fathers of the Church. For them, money was evil, and wealth was born of dishonesty. This is quite frightening, because it is strangely similar to the thinking of the extreme left or Poles from the times of... the Polish People's Republic. At the same time, the love of money was condemned, in which Christians resembled the pagan Plato. While the Greek philosopher disliked lovers of money because they bored him during conversations, the founders of the Church claimed that the worship of wealth leads to stinginess (which is quite logical, right?). In practice, money was to be used to help our neighbors and the weak, not to multiply our wealth. However, this is a far cry from what many priests, including popes, did later in history! It is worth adding, however, that despite the above, bankers were distinguished from usurers. Why? This is another proof that people bend their ideas to real needs. Simply hitting the bankers would hamper economic development. The mischievous would add that the latter was already needed by the Church at this stage, because richer believers mean higher donations during mass. However, we are not so sarcastic, so we will not write this... Commerce... yes, not ok either The business man would not have fared too well in the days of the early Church. The institution didn't trust traders for all that. Actually, and here again you can see an echo of the thinking of the ancient Greeks. Just as Aristotle said that you shouldn't make money from borrowing money, because money itself doesn't produce anything, so the Christians thought that merchants weren't very socially useful, because they traded in things that they themselves didn't ultimately produce. This was supposed to mean that they themselves did not produce real value. This is somewhat reminiscent of a certain contempt for sellers that - again! - is visible in the Polish mentality. The question is whether this comes from Christianity or from the mentality of the communist Poland, where the worker was always valued more highly than the intellectual or the so-called private person. Such unfavorable thinking for business people changed only in the Middle Ages. St. Albert the Great (1190-1280) admitted that money is necessary, while St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) added that traders can add their mark-up to goods, but only if, for example, they transported it to another place. On top of this, the discussion turned to the idea of a just price. Henry of Ghent in the thirteenth century argued that there could be a mark-up in trade, but mainly in three cases: when the goods were transported somewhere, such as to another city, when the trader bought it when it was cheap, sold it when it was expensive; so the general market conditions changed, when the trader knows what he is selling, so when we buy goods from him, we know we are buying something solid. In other words, he adds some value to us through his knowledge. Money eventually began to be treated as a tool for trade. Why? The simplest answer would be: because it had to! Simply put, humans cannot exist without money in its economic dimension. Or to be more precise: the economy cannot function without this "disgusting" mammon (let's leave aside here the crazy visions of the communists, who believed that it could be otherwise, because, as practice shows, such ideas were never implemented on a large scale). The Scholastics also adopted from Aristotle himself the theory of the sterility of money. Let us remember that this Greek philosopher was a pagan! As you can see, however, the Christians were able to turn a blind eye to this. Still, the official ban on usury was upheld. Although also only on paper. In practice it was cleverly avoided. In place of high interest, the so-called compensation for losses caused by delayed repayment was charged. In other words, money was borrowed for such a short period of time that interest could be charged right away. Another method was to charge fees for the risk involved in borrowing money. As you can see, usury and credit functioned within Christian societies, but under different concepts. Officer
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