USURY IN GREEK, ROMAN AND RABBINIC THOUGHT Author(s): ROBERT P. MALONEY Source: Traditio, Vol. 27 (1971), pp. 79-109 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27830917 Accessed: 14-08-2018 18:08 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Traditio This content downloaded from 142.58.129.109 on Tue, 14 Aug 2018 18:08:51 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms USURY IN GREEK, ROMAN AND RABBINIC THOUGHT By ROBERT P. MALONEY, CM. The Christian teaching on usury did not develop in a vacuum. Christianity was born in a Semitic milieu and spread rapidly through the Graeco-Roman world. Naturally, its ancestry and its environment influenced its moral think ing. The Fathers of the Church were well acquainted with the thought of others about usury. Besides many references to the clear Old Testament usury prohibition, the writings of the Fathers reflect and interact with attitudes toward interest-taking in Greece and Rome and in early rabbinical literature. It will thus be helpful to examine those strains of thought that existed side by side with the early patristic teaching and influenced it.