مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري

Abstract :

The German Reformation was caused to the outbreak of the modern revolt against the Hebraic and medieval catholician prohibition of usury. Because Luther asserted that the human was free, under no obligation to observe dead Mosaic ordinances. He explained that the Deuteronomic commantment on usury was not intented to take place of the civil law or to supplant existing secular authorities. The age of the German reformers is the time of Deuteronomy’s crisis and demise. Luther applauded the Deuteronomic discrimination. He insisted that God allowed the Hebrews to take usury from alien peoples not because usury was meritorious or a part of the common law, but because He wished thus to indicate His wrath against the Gentiles. Melanchton’s views on the traffic in annuities are much more than those of Luther. Melanchton’s formula implies the increasing bifurcation of human relations into distinct spheres: one, the world of friendship and free services; the other, the world of commercial intercourse and economic calculus. Zwingli (1484-1531) , like Luther and Melanchthon, seems loathe to concede that a strict prohibition of usury might be inferred from Scriptures. But in spite of this they don’t expressly depart from the ethic of brotherhood. Martin Bucer (1491-1551) says persons may rightly claim ten per cent interest under the law. According to him, the objections to usury depend on the Old Testament apply not to all increments on loans, but properly to bitting usury upon usury.