University of Virginia Library

USURY:

the lending of money at exorbitant interest. The practice was banned by the CHRISTIAN CHURCH and by ISLAM which also bans all FORMS of interest on the basis of ARISTOTLE'S theory of money. Following the PROTESTANT REFORMATION most Protestant Churches distinguished between usury as extortion and interest as legitimate reward for venture capital. The ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH also adopted this position in the late nineteenth century.