[Footnote 190-4: Exod., 22, 25; Levit., 25, 35 ff.; Deuteron., 15, 7 seq.; 23, 19 seq.; Psalms, 15, 5; 109, 11; 112, 5; Proverbs, 28, 8; Jerem., 15, 10; _Hes._, 18, 8. After the return from exile, the prohibition was restored. (Net. 5, 1 ff.) Was there, in the long duration of such prescriptions, an educational measure having reference to the peculiar fault towards which the Jewish national character had a special tendency? In Josephus's time even, usury practiced on one's country people was universally despised (Antiq. Jud., IV, 8, 25.), and the Talmud continues it. Compare _Michaelis_, De Mente ac Ratione Legis M. Usuram prohibentis. In Russia, the orthodox Jews are wont to evade the legal rate of interest by exacting one-half the profit, and estimating it approximately in advance at a probable sum. If, afterwards, the debtor declares under oath that he made no profit, the creditor has no more to say; but then the borrower would lose all credit in the future. (_Bonav. Mayer_, Die Juden unserer Zeit, 1842, 13 seq.)] [Footnote 190-5: The Mosaic passages, however, only prohibit the taking of interest from poor people of one's own country.] [Footnote 190-6: The prohibition in the Koran, ch. 2, 30, is regularly evaded in Persia, by deducting the proper amount at the moment the loan is made. (_Chardin_, IV, 157 ff.) Under the Mongolian rulers, it was done by way of preference, by a fictitious sale for cash, at prices out of all proportion. "Why cannot capitalists either buy land or carry on trade?" asked Sultan Gazan, on an occasion when the prohibition of interest was strongly insisted on. (_d'Ohsson_, Histoire des Mongols, IV, 397.)] [Footnote 190-7: For instance, _Luke_, 6, 34 ff., where interest is no more prohibited than in _Luke_, 14, 12 ff., the mutual invitation of friends to a feast. Not less groundless is the supposed allegorical allusion (_Matthew_, 21, 12) to interest-creditors. Rather might an approval of interest be inferred from _Matthew_, 25, 27.] [Footnote 190-8: _Origen_, for instance, would have the creditor take no interest; but exhorts the debtor to return double the amount unasked. (Homil., III, ad. Ps., § 37.) Hence there is here no condemnation of interest, but only an effort to transform all legal relations into relations of love. Quite the reverse in _Lactant._, Instit., VI, 12; _Basil_, ad. Matth., 5 ff.; _Ambrose_, De Off., III, 3; _Chrysost._, ad. Matth. Hom., 56; Tim., VII, 373 ff. (Paris, 1727); _Hieronym._, ad. Ezech., V, 367 c. (Francof, 1684); _Augustin._, Epist., 54. Even _Cyprian_, 183, 318 (Paris, 1726).] SECTION CXCI. INTEREST-POLICY.--THE CANON LAW, etc.