Most religions, the Christian excepted (the universal religion!), have been founded in the earlier stages of the nations who profess them, and have there, at least outwardly, exercised their greatest influence. No wonder, therefore, that so many religions have prohibited the taking of interest. Thus, for instance, the Jewish which, indeed, allows interest to be taken from foreigners, but raises loaning without interest among Jews in their commerce with one another, to the dignity of a duty binding on the conscience of the beneficent rich.[190-4] [190-5] Similarly in the Koran.[190-6] The Fathers of the Church, also, on the whole, look with disfavor on the taking of interest, relying upon well-known passages in the Old Testament, and, in part, on misunderstood expressions in the New.[190-7] This is especially true of the Fathers of the Church from the beginning of the fourth century, when the Roman empire was frightfully impoverished by the devastations of the barbarians, and as a consequence the conditions as to interest which prevail in the lowest stages of civilization had returned. Mercy towards the poor usually occupies the foreground in the demonstrations of the Fathers.[190-8] [Footnote 190-1: Distress-debts in contradistinction to acquisition-debts. (_Schmalz_, Staatswirthsch. Lehre in Briefen, I, 227.) Compare _Hesiod._, Opp., 647; also _Herodot._, I, 138.] [Footnote 190-2: Thus _Aristotle_, calls the taking of interest a gain against nature, since money is only a medium of exchange, and cannot produce its like. (Polit., 3, 23, Schn.) Similarly, _Plato_, De Legg., V, 742, and _Seneca_, De Benef., VII, 10. Compare, however, _Tacit_., Annal, XIII, 42 seq. As late a writer as _Forbonnais,_ 1754, accounts for interest thus: Some people hoard their money instead of spending it; hence a scarcity or want of money, and those who need it are obliged, in order to draw it out, to promise to pay interest. (Eléments de Commerce, II, 92 ff.)] [Footnote 190-3: Numerous disturbances on account of debt, during the first centuries of the Roman Republic, until finally (compare _Livy_, VII, 42), the taking of interest was in the year 349 (?) before Christ, entirely prohibited. (_Tacit._, Annal. VI, 16.) The public opinion in such matters may be understood from the words of Cato: _majores ita in legibus posuerunt, furem dupli condemnari, foeneratorem quadrupli_. (De Re rust.) The _foenerari_ compared with the _hominem occidere_. (_Cato_, in _Cicero_, De Off., II, 25.) In the higher stages of civilization little heed was paid to the law, in practice (compare _Livy_, XXXV, 7; _Plut._, Cato, I, 21.), although the democratic party always held fast to the legal perpetuation of the prohibition of interest. (_Mommsen_, Römisch. Gesch., III, 493.)]