because, so they opine, “it was a question of relinquishing all claim not merely on the interest but on the capital itself.”[272] The Jesuit theologians of the 16th and 17th centuries as a rule were careful to instance a number of cases in which the canonical prohibition of charging even a moderate rate of interest does not apply. They thus paved the way for the abrogation of the prohibition. Of this we have an instance in Iago Lainez, who in principle was strongly averse to the charging of interest. This theologian, who later became General of the Jesuits, when a preacher at the busy commercial city of Genoa, wrote (1553-1554) an essay on usury embodying the substance of his addresses to the merchants.[273] Lainez there points out that any damage accruing to the lender from the loan, and also the temporary absence of profit on it, constitutes a sufficient ground for demanding a moderate interest.[274] He also strongly insists that the lender, in compensation for his willingness to lend, may accept from the borrower a “voluntary” premium;[275] the lender, moreover, has a perfect right to safeguard himself by stipulating for a fine (_pœna conventionalis_) from the borrower should repayment be delayed. All this comes under the instances of “apparent usury,” which he enumerates: “_Casus qui videntur usurarii et non sunt_” (cap. 10). Luther devotes no such prudent consideration to those exceptional cases. He was more inclined by nature harshly to vindicate the principles he had embraced than to seek how best to limit them in practice. “He did not take into account loans asked for, not from necessity, but for the purpose of making profit on the borrowed money”;[276] yet, after all, this was the very point on which the question turned in the early days of economic development. He discusses the lawfulness of a voluntary premium and comes to the conclusion that it is wrong. He scoffs at the lender, as a mere hypocrite, who argues: “The borrower is very thankful for such a loan and freely and without compulsion offers me 5, 6 or even 10 florins on the hundred.” “But even an adulteress and an adulterer,” says Luther in his usual vein, “are thankful and pleased with each other; a robber, too, does an assassin a great service when he helps him to commit highway robbery.” The borrower does the lender a similar criminal service and spiritual injury, for which no premium can make compensation.[277] As regards the case where the loan is not repaid at the specified time, Luther is, of course, of opinion that any real loss to the owner must be made good by the borrower. But now, he says, “they accept reimbursement for losses which they never suffered at all,” they simply calculate the interest on a loss which they may possibly suffer from not having back the money when the time comes for buying or paying. “In its efforts to make a certainty of what is uncertain, will not usury soon be the ruin of the world!”[278]