The Fight Against USURY

by Jüri Lina

THE BARNES REVIEW Sept/Oct 2004

"Lending money at interest has been condemned by men such as Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Seneca and Cicero, early fathers of the Christian church; the majority of popes and councils up to 1830; likewise modern authors such as Goethe and Wagner.

The fight against usury goes back to the earliest known beginnings of civilization. From the days of Sumer to the present, decent people have struggled against this tool of the forces of darkness. Charging interest was condemned by the ancient Greek, philosophers. Money was to them something dead; something dead cannot be allowed to grow. Aristotle wrote in his work Politics (Book One, part X): "The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. . . Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural."

Up until the end of the Middle Ages it was forbidden for Christians to charge interest. To charge interest on a loan was tantamount to murder and robbery. Later, those who charged interest were treated as heretics.

Martin Luther stated plainly: "All usurers are thieves and belong in the gallows." Everyone who lent money at an interest rate of 5 to 6 percent was considered to be a usurer. During the Middle Ages only Jews were allowed to lend money with interest: In Deuteronomy a Jew is forbidden to charge interest from his brother. But the goy (non-Jew) was not his brother. And to Jewish extremists plunder was not unfamiliar.

In ancient Babylonia the legal interest rate was 30 percent on money and 50 percent on grain. In Assyria there was no upper limit for interest rate. The farmers were often so deep in debt that they starved to death along with their families. This led to ruthless exploitation of the soil.

Martin Luther, the founding father of the Lutheran Protestant Church, and others of his era condemned usury, Fiery preacher Jakob Strauss conducted a violent campaign against usury and tithes. Thomas Muentzer, an unruly genius, combined his own ingenious liturgical reforms with a program of holy war.

In the city of Uruk in Sumer there lived two brothers who lent money with interest. When a borrower no longer could repay his loan, he lost his house and had to start working for free for the brothers. The slave could be lent also to other employers. This is a classical example of economic slavery.

Almost 3,700 years ago the ruler of Babylon, Hammurabi (1848-1805 B.C.). who was descended from the Amorite dynasty, forbade through his legal acts (containing 93 paragraphs) the taking of interest on interest, which meant that the borrower had to give in addition to the assets he had borrowed the same amount in goods or money. Anyone who broke the rule was severely punished, though very few abided by it. The 282 statutes of Hammurabi, written in Akkadian, were found in 1901-02 at excavations at Susa in ancient Elani (now Iran).

The tribune Tiberius Gracchus of the Roman Empire tried in 133 B.C. to reduce the power of the moneychangers through stricter laws against usury and to limit the legal land ownership to lugeri (about 600 acres) per family. He was murdered the same year.

In 48 B.C. Julius Caesar deprived the moneychangers of the right to coin money and had it done himself. With a larger money supply he was able to erect many public buildings. Common people adored Caesar for his contribution to making money more available. After the murder of Caesar there was an end to the abundance of money. The money supply was reduced by 90 percent. Taxes rose sky-high. As a result most people lost their land and their homes. The slander of Caesar goes on even today.

The Freemasons wanted to acquire as much wealth as possible in order to serve their demons during the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Irish economist Margrit Kennedy has pointed out that a 1 percent loan is doubled in 70 years. A 3 percent loan with accumulated interest doubles in only 24 years. A 6 percent loan doubles in 12 years, and at 12 percent the amount is doubled in just sis years.

If anyone had lent one cent in A.D. 1 and charged a 4 percent interest; in 1750 he could have bought gold weighing as much as the whole Earth. (At 5 percent interest it would have been possible as early as the year 1403.) [n 1990 he would have been able to buy 12,246 such ''nuggets."

These extreme examples show how madly interest damages each country's economy.

After the so-called French Revolution the use of paper money was widespread.

The gold traders began practicing economic fraud to become even more powerful. They lent secretly part of the gold that had been deposited with them and kept the interest they made on such illegal loan. The gold traders then issued more receipts (bank notes) of gold deposits than they had gold, then lent these notes and charged interest on them Far more money was lent than what the creditor had cover for. Soon these money crooks lent as much as up to 10 times more than they had gold deposited.

This breach of trust has become common in all areas in the world of the Freemasons. The American banks have the right to lend 10 times more money than they actually have. This means that their interest actually is close to 80 percent and not 8 percent, which is officially claimed. The Masonic bankers create money out of nothing and force us to pay interest thereon." (snip) ...

This is a lengthy article with an abundance of background information. Read the complete article at this website:
http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=131923

NOTE: More about 'usury' at this website:
http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=131923