=23. The Controversy concerning Usury, 1600–1800.=--In a long series of decrees from popes and from councils, the Church has announced its conclusion that the taking of interest, even although the rate should not be extortionate, comes under the head of the sin of usury. This contention was maintained constantly throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, and the several classes of trade in which the taking of interest was a necessary factor, were condemned as not to be permitted by the Church. As a result of this policy, a number of legal treatises which undertook the defence of interest that was not exaggerated into extortion, were prohibited. There were also placed upon the Index certain other monographs in which the question had been treated from a purely academic standpoint. Under Benedict XIV, the controversy came to the front in connection with the publication of monographs by Broedersen, an ecclesiastic of Utrecht, and by the Marquis Sipio Maffei, in which ground was taken against the theories of the Church. Benedict XIV published, in 1745, an encyclical in which he confirms as the present utterance of the Church the old contention. The two treatises which had formed the text for the utterance of the Pope were, however, not prohibited. In fact that by Maffei was, in 1746, reprinted in Rome contemporaneously with a monograph by the Dominican Concina, in which Maffei’s conclusions were stigmatised as heretical. It is the conclusion of Reusch that the earlier Church view, while in theory confirmed by Benedict, had practically been abandoned. The controversy continued throughout the 19th century, and several of the later popes have taken the ground that the practice of taking interest that was not extortionate could be permitted until the question had received a final decision from the Holy See. During this latter period, only one work on the subject was placed on the Index, a monograph by Laborde, who was a sharp opponent of the earlier Church theory. No final conclusion of the issue has, however, ever been reached by the Church. It has probably been withheld because it would be difficult to frame a conclusion that would not either directly or indirectly constitute a reflection on the good judgment and wisdom of the earlier papal utterances. In July, 1745, Benedict XIV instituted a special Congregation comprising four cardinals and clever theologians to give consideration to the subject of usury. The theologians included two Jesuits, one Dominican (Concina), and one Observant. The Pope himself presided over the sessions. The conclusions arrived at were published on the first of August in the form of three propositions. These were utilised by Benedict as the basis of the encyclical to the Italian bishops issued in November, 1745. 1. All return for the use of money given in the form of interest is to be classed as usury and characterised as unlawful.