History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom Part 70

(445) The only notice of the Lot's wife legend in the editions of Robinson at my command is a very curious one by Leopold von Buch, the eminent geologist. Robinson, with a fearlessness which does him credit, consulted Von Buch, who in his answer was evidently inclined to make things easier for Robinson by hinting that Lot was so much struck by the salt formations that HE IMAGINED that his wife had been changed into salt. On this theory, Robinson makes no comment. See Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine, etc., London, 1841, vol. ii, p. 674.

Naturally, under this state of things, there has followed the usual attempt to throw off from Christendom the responsibility of the old belief, and in 1887 came a curious effort of this sort. In that year appeared the Rev. Dr. Cunningham Geikie's valuable work on The Holy Land and the Bible. In it he makes the following statement as to the salt formation at Usdum: "Here and there, hardened portions of salt withstanding the water, while all around them melts and wears off, rise up isolated pillars, one of which bears among the Arabs the name of 'Lot's wife.'"

In the light of the previous history, there is something at once pathetic and comical in this attempt to throw the myth upon the shoulders of the poor Arabs. The myth was not originated by Mohammedans; it appears, as we have seen, first among the Jews, and, I need hardly remind the reader, comes out in the Book of Wisdom and in Josephus, and has been steadily maintained by fathers, martyrs, and doctors of the Church, by at least one pope, and by innumerable bishops, priests, monks, commentators, and travellers, Catholic and Protestant, ever since. In thus throwing the responsibility of the myth upon the Arabs Dr. Geikie appears to show both the "perfervid genius" of his countrymen and their incapacity to recognise a joke.

Nor is he more happy in his rationalistic explanations of the whole ma.s.s of myths. He supposes a terrific storm, in which the lightning kindled the combustible materials of the cities, aided perhaps by an earthquake; but this shows a disposition to break away from the exact statements of the sacred books which would have been most severely condemned by the universal Church during at least eighteen hundred years of its history.

Nor would the explanations of Sir William Dawson have fared any better: it is very doubtful whether either of them could escape unscathed today from a synod of the Free Church of Scotland, or of any of the leading orthodox bodies in the Southern States of the American Union.(446)

(446) For these most recent explanations, see Rev. Cunningham Geikie, D.

D., in work cited; also Sir J. W. Dawson, Egypt and Syria, published by the Religious Tract Society, 1887, pp. 125, 126; see also Dawson's article in The Expositor for January, 1886.

How unsatisfactory all such rationalism must be to a truly theological mind is seen not only in the dealings with Prof. Robertson Smith in Scotland and Prof. Woodrow in South Carolina, but most clearly in a book published in 1886 by Monseigneur Haussmann de Wandelburg. Among other things, the author was Prelate of the Pope's House-hold, a Mitred Abbot, Canon of the Holy Sepulchre, and a Doctor of Theology of the Pontifical University at Rome, and his work is introduced by approving letters from Pope Leo XIII and the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Monseigneur de Wandelburg scorns the idea that the salt column at Usdum is not the statue of Lot's wife; he points out not only the danger of yielding this evidence of miracle to rationalism, but the fact that the divinely inspired authority of the Book of Wisdom, written, at the latest, two hundred and fifty years before Christ, distinctly refers to it. He summons Josephus as a witness. He dwells on the fact that St. Clement of Rome, Irenaeus, Hegesippus, and St. Cyril, "who as Bishop of Jerusalem must have known better than any other person what existed in Palestine," with St.

Jerome, St. Chrysostom, and a mult.i.tude of others, attest, as a matter of their own knowledge or of popular notoriety, that the remains of Lot's wife really existed in their time in the form of a column of salt; and he points triumphantly to the fact that Lieutenant Lynch found this very column. In the presence of such a continuous line of witnesses, some of them considered as divinely inspired, and all of them greatly revered--a line extending through thirty-seven hundred years--he condemns most vigorously all those who do not believe that the pillar of salt now at Usdum is identical with the wife of Lot, and stigmatizes them as people who "do not wish to believe the truth of the Word of G.o.d."

His ignorance of many of the simplest facts bearing upon the legend is very striking, yet he does not hesitate to speak of men who know far more and have thought far more upon the subject as "grossly ignorant."

The most curious feature in his ignorance is the fact that he is utterly unaware of the annual changes in the salt statue. He is entirely ignorant of such facts as that the priest Gabriel Giraudet in the sixteenth century found the statue lying down; that the monk Zwinner found it in the seventeenth century standing, and accompanied by a dog also transformed into salt; that Prince Radziwill found no statue at all; that the pious Vincent Briemle in the eighteenth century found the monument renewing itself; that about the middle of the nineteenth century Lynch found it in the shape of a tower or column forty feet high; that within two years afterward De Saulcy found it washed into the form of a spire; that a year later Van de Velde found it utterly washed away; and that a few years later Palmer found it "a statue bearing a striking resemblance to an Arab woman with a child in her arms." So ended the last great demonstration, thus far, on the side of sacred science--the last retreating shot from the theological rear guard.

It is but just to say that a very great share in the honour of the victory of science in this field is due to men trained as theologians.

It would naturally be so, since few others have devoted themselves to direct labour in it; yet great honour is none the less due to such men as Reland, Mariti, Smith, Robinson, Stanley, Tristram, and Schat.

They have rendered even a greater service to religion than to science, for they have made a beginning, at least, of doing away with that enforced belief in myths as history which has become a most serious danger to Christianity.

For the worst enemy of Christianity could wish nothing more than that its main Leaders should prove that it can not be adopted save by those who accept, as historical, statements which unbiased men throughout the world know to be mythical. The result of such a demonstration would only be more and more to make thinking people inside the Church dissemblers, and thinking people outside, scoffers. Far better is it to welcome the aid of science, in the conviction that all truth is one, and, in the light of this truth, to allow theology and science to work together in the steady evolution of religion and morality.

The revelations made by the sciences which most directly deal with the history of man all converge in the truth that during the earlier stages of this evolution moral and spiritual teachings must be inclosed in myth, legend, and parable. "The Master" felt this when he gave to the poor peasants about him, and so to the world, his simple and beautiful ill.u.s.trations. In making this truth clear, science will give to religion far more than it will take away, for it will throw new life and light into all sacred literature.

CHAPTER XIX. FROM LEVITICUS TO POLITICAL ECONOMY

I. ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF HOSTILITY TO LOANS AT INTEREST.

Among questions on which the supporters of right reason in political and social science have only conquered theological opposition after centuries of war, is the taking of interest on loans. In hardly any struggle has rigid adherence to the letter of our sacred books been more prolonged and injurious.

Certainly, if the criterion of truth, as regards any doctrine, be that of St. Vincent of Lerins--that it has been held in the Church "always, everywhere, and by all"--then on no point may a Christian of these days be more sure than that every savings inst.i.tution, every loan and trust company, every bank, every loan of capital by an individual, every means by which acc.u.mulated capital has been lawfully lent even at the most moderate interest, to make men workers rather than paupers, is based on deadly sin.

The early evolution of the belief that taking interest for money is sinful presents a curious working together of metaphysical, theological, and humanitarian ideas.

In the main centre of ancient Greek civilization, the loaning of money at interest came to be accepted at an early period as a condition of productive industry, and no legal restriction was imposed. In Rome there was a long process of development: the greed of creditors in early times led to laws against the taking of interest; but, though these lasted long, that strong practical sense which gave Rome the empire of the world subst.i.tuted finally, for this absolute prohibition, the establishment of rates by law. Yet many of the leading Greek and Roman thinkers opposed this practical settlement of the question, and, foremost of all, Aristotle. In a metaphysical way he declared that money is by nature "barren"; that the birth of money from money is therefore "unnatural"; and hence that the taking of interest is to be censured and hated. Plato, Plutarch, both the Catos, Cicero, Seneca, and various other leaders of ancient thought, arrived at much the same conclusion--sometimes from sympathy with oppressed debtors; sometimes from dislike of usurers; sometimes from simple contempt of trade.

From these sources there came into the early Church the germ of a theological theory upon the subject.

But far greater was the stream of influence from the Jewish and Christian sacred books. In the Old Testament stood various texts condemning usury--the term usury meaning any taking of interest: the law of Moses, while it allowed usury in dealing with strangers, forbade it in dealing with Jews. In the New Testament, in the Sermon on the Mount, as given by St. Luke, stood the text "Lend, hoping for nothing again."

These texts seemed to harmonize with the most beautiful characteristic of primitive Christianity; its tender care for the poor and oppressed: hence we find, from the earliest period, the whole weight of the Church brought to bear against the taking of interest for money.(448)

(448) On the general allowance of interest for money in Greece, even at high rates, see Bockh, Public Economy of the Athenians, translated by Lamb, Boston, 1857, especially chaps. xxii, xxiii, and xxiv of book i.

For a view of usury taken by Aristotle, see his Politics and Economics, translated by Walford, p. 27; also Grote, History of Greece, vol. iii, chap. xi. For summary of opinions in Greece and Rome, and their relation to Christian thought, see Bohm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest, translated by Smart, London, 1890, chap. i. For a very full list of scripture texts against the taking of interest, see Pearson, The Theories on Usury in Europe, 1100-1400, Cambridge (England), 1876, p. 6. The texts most frequently cited were Leviticus xxv, 36, 37; Deuteronomy xxiii, 19 and 26; Psalms, xv, 5; Ezekiel xviii, 8 and 17; St. Luke, vi, 35. For a curious modern use of them, see D. S. d.i.c.kinson's speech in the State of New York, in vol. i of his collected writings. See also Lecky, History of Rationalism in Europe, vol. ii, chap. vi; and above all, as the most recent historical summary by a leading historian of political economy, Bohm-Bawerk, as above.

The great fathers of the Eastern Church, and among them St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, and St. Gregory of Nyssa,--the fathers of the Western Church, and among them Tertullian, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St.

Jerome, joined most earnestly in this condemnation. St. Basil denounces money at interest as a "fecund monster," and says, "The divine law declares expressly, 'Thou shalt not lend on usury to thy brother or thy neighbour.'" St. Gregory of Nyssa calls down on him who lends money at interest the vengeance of the Almighty. St. Chrysostom says: "What can be more unreasonable than to sow without land, without rain, without ploughs? All those who give themselves up to this d.a.m.nable culture shall reap only tares. Let us cut off these monstrous births of gold and silver; let us stop this execrable fecundity."

Lactantius called the taking of interest "robbery." St. Ambrose declared it as bad as murder, St. Jerome threw the argument into the form of a dilemma, which was used as a weapon against money-lenders for centuries.

Pope Leo the Great solemnly adjudged it a sin worthy of severe punishment.(449)

(449) For St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nyssa, see French translation of their diatribes in Homelies contre les Usuriers, Paris, Hachette, 1861-'62, especially p. 30 of St. Basil. For some doubtful reservations by St. Augustine, see Murray, History of Usury. For St. Ambrose, see De Officiis, lib. iii, cap. ii, in Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. xvi; also the De Tobia, in Migne, vol. xiv. For St. Augustine, see De Bapt. contr Donat., lib. iv, cap. ix, in Migne, vol. xliii. For Lactantius, see his Opera, Leyden, 1660, p. 608. For Cyprian, see his Testimonies against the Jews, translated by Wallis, book iii, article 48. For St. Jerome, see his Com.

in Ezekiel, xviii, 8, in Migne, vol. xxv, pp. 170 et seq. For Leo the Great, see his letter to the bishops of various provinces of Italy, cited in the Jus. Can., cap. vii, can. xiv, qu. 4. For very fair statements of the att.i.tude of the fathers on this question, see Addis and Arnold, Catholic Dictionary, London, 1884, and Smith and Cheetham, Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, London, 1875-'80; in each, under article Usury.

This unanimity of the fathers of the Church brought about a crystallization of hostility to interest-bearing loans into numberless decrees of popes and councils and kings and legislatures throughout Christendom during more than fifteen hundred years, and the canon law was shaped in accordance with these. At first these were more especially directed against the clergy, but we soon find them extending to the laity. These prohibitions were enforced by the Council of Arles in 314, and a modern Church apologist insists that every great a.s.sembly of the Church, from the Council of Elvira in 306 to that of Vienne in 1311, inclusive, solemnly condemned lending money at interest. The greatest rulers under the sway of the Church--Justinian, in the Empire of the East; Charlemagne, in the Empire of the West; Alfred, in England; St.

Louis, in France--yielded fully to this dogma. In the ninth century Alfred went so far as to confiscate the estates of money-lenders, denying them burial in Consecrated ground; and similar decrees were made in other parts of Europe. In the twelfth century the Greek Church seems to have relaxed its strictness somewhat, but the Roman Church grew more severe. St. Anselm proved from the Scriptures that the taking of interest is a breach of the Ten Commandments. Peter Lombard, in his Sentences, made the taking of interest purely and simply theft. St.

Bernard, reviving religious earnestness in the Church, took the same view. In 1179 the Third Council of the Lateran decreed that impenitent money-lenders should be excluded from the altar, from absolution in the hour of death, and from Christian burial. Pope Urban III reiterated the declaration that the pa.s.sage in St. Luke forbade the taking of any interest whatever. Pope Alexander III declared that the prohibition in this matter could never be suspended by dispensation.

In the thirteenth century Pope Gregory IX dealt an especially severe blow at commerce by his declaration that even to advance on interest the money necessary in maritime trade was d.a.m.nable usury; and this was fitly followed by Gregory X, who forbade Christian burial to those guilty of this practice; the Council of Lyons meted out the same penalty. This idea was still more firmly fastened upon the world by the two greatest thinkers of the time: first, by St. Thomas Aquinas, who knit it into the mind of the Church by the use of the Scriptures and of Aristotle; and next by Dante, who pictured money-lenders in one of the worst regions of h.e.l.l.

About the beginning of the fourteenth century the "Subtile Doctor" of the Middle Ages, Duns Scotus, gave to the world an exquisite piece of reasoning in evasion of the accepted doctrine; but all to no purpose: the Council of Vienne, presided over by Pope Clement V, declared that if any one "shall pertinaciously presume to affirm that the taking of interest for money is not a sin, we decree him to be a heretic, fit for punishment." This infallible utterance bound the dogma with additional force on the conscience of the universal Church.

Nor was this a doctrine enforced by rulers only; the people were no less strenuous. In 1390 the city authorities of London enacted that, "if any person shall lend or put into the hands of any person gold or silver to receive gain thereby, such person shall have the punishment for usurers." And in the same year the Commons prayed the king that the laws of London against usury might have the force of statutes throughout the realm.

In the fifteenth century the Council of the Church at Salzburg excluded from communion and burial any who took interest for money, and this was a very general rule throughout Germany.

An exception was, indeed, sometimes made: some canonists held that Jews might be allowed to take interest, since they were to be d.a.m.ned in any case, and their monopoly of money-lending might prevent Christians from losing their souls by going into the business. Yet even the Jews were from time to time punished for the crime of usury; and, as regards Christians, punishment was bestowed on the dead as well as the living--the bodies of dead money-lenders being here and there dug up and cast out of consecrated ground.

The popular preachers constantly declaimed against all who took interest. The medieval anecdote books for pulpit use are especially full on this point. Jacques de Vitry tells us that demons on one occasion filled a dead money-lender's mouth with red-hot coins; Cesarius of Heisterbach declared that a toad was found thrusting a piece of money into a dead usurer's heart; in another case, a devil was seen pouring molten gold down a dead money-lender's throat.(450)

(450) For an enumeration of councils condemning the taking of interest for money, see Liegeois, Essai sur l'Histoire et la Legislation de l'Usure, Paris, 1865, p. 78; also the Catholic Dictionary as above. For curious additional details and sources regarding mediaeval horror of usurers, see Ducange, Glossarium, etc., article Caorcini. T he date 306, for the Council of Elvira is that a.s.signed by Hefele. For the decree of Alexander III, see citation from the Latin text in Lecky. For a long catalogue of ecclesiastical and civil decrees against taking of interest, see Pet.i.t, Traite de l'Usure, Paris, 1840. For the reasoning at the bottom of this, see Cunningham, Christian Opinion on Usury, London, 1884. For the Salzburg decrees, see Zillner, Salzburgusche Culturgeschichte, p. 232; and for Germany generally, see Neumann, Geschichte des Wuchers in Deutschland, Halle, 1865, especially pp. 22 et seq; also Roscher, National-Oeconomis. For effect of mistranslation of the pa.s.sage of Luke in the Vulgate, see Dollinger, p. 170, and especially pp. 224, 225 For the capitularies of Charlemagne against usury, see Liegeois, p. 77. For Gregory X and the Council of Lyons, see s.e.xtus Decretalium liber, pp. 669 et. seq. For Peter Lombard, see his Lib. Sententiarum, III, dist. x.x.xvii, 3. For St. Thomas Aquinas, see his works, Migne, vol. iii, Paris 1889, quaestio 78, pp. 587 et seq., citing the Scriptures and Aristotle, and especially developing Aristotle's metaphysical idea regarding the "barrenness" of money. For a very good summary of St. Thomas's ideas, see Pearson. pp. 30 et seq. For Dante, see in canto xi of the Inferno a revelation of the amazing depth of the hostility to the taking of interest. For the London law of 1390 and the pet.i.tion to the king, see Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, pp. 210, 326; also the Abridgment of the Records in the Tower of London, p. 339. For the theory that Jews, being d.a.m.ned already, might be allowed to practice usury, see Liegeois, Histoire de l'Usure, p. 82.

For St. Bernard's view, see Epist. CCCLXIII, in Migne, vol. clx.x.xii, p. 567. For ideas and anecdotes for preachers' use, see Joannes a San Geminiano, Summa de Exemplis, Antwerp, 1629, fol. 493, a; also the edition of Venice, 1584, ff. 132, 159; but especially, for mult.i.tudes of examples, see the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, edited by Prof. T.

F. Crane, of Cornell University, London, 1890, pp. 203 et seq. For the canon law in regard to interest, see a long line of authorities cited in Die Wucherfrage, St. Louis, 1869, pp. 92 et seq., and especially Decret.

Gregor., lib v, lit. 19, cap. iii, and Clementin., lib. v, lit. 5, sec.

2; see also the Corpus Juris Canonici, Paris, 1618, pp. 227, 228.

For the position of the English Church, see Gibson's Corpus Juris Ecclesiastici Anglicani, pp. 1070, 1071, 1106.

This theological hostility to the taking of interest was imbedded firmly in the canon law. Again and again it defined usury to be the taking of anything of value beyond the exact original amount of a loan; and under sanction of the universal Church it denounced this as a crime and declared all persons defending it to be guilty of heresy. What this meant the world knows but too well.

The whole evolution of European civilization was greatly hindered by this conscientious policy. Money could only be loaned in most countries at the risk of incurring odium in this world and d.a.m.nation in the next; hence there was but little capital and few lenders. The rates of interest became at times enormous; as high as forty per cent in England, and ten per cent a month in Italy and Spain. Commerce, manufactures, and general enterprise were dwarfed, while pauperism flourished.