Thomas Aquinas — "It is lawful to take usury from Jews."
It is lawful to take usury from Jews.
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More from Thomas Aquinas
"Man is by nature a social animal."
"The natural order of things requires that women be subject to men."
"The children of slaves are slaves by birth."
"The sin against nature is the most grievous of sins."
"The greatest evil is to do wrong and not to suffer for it."
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Understanding this quote
What it means
The quote asserts that charging interest (usury) to Jewish people is permissible under natural or divine law, even when usury between Christians was forbidden. It draws on a distinction rooted in Deuteronomy, where lending at interest to outsiders was treated differently than lending to fellow community members — essentially applying tiered moral rules based on religious identity rather than a universal ethical standard.
Relevance to Thomas Aquinas
Aquinas systematically addressed usury in the Summa Theologica, condemning interest-taking as contrary to natural law. Yet he also engaged the Deuteronomic distinction between lending to co-religionists versus outsiders. His scholastic method — reconciling Scripture, Aristotle, and Church tradition — led him to acknowledge older biblical permissions even when they conflicted with his broader condemnation of usury, revealing tensions in his universalist ethics.
The era
Medieval Europe banned Christians from moneylending, pushing Jews into finance as one of few legally tolerated professions. This created deep resentment and anti-Jewish stigma. Church councils repeatedly debated usury's legality across religious lines. Aquinas wrote amid growing urban commerce and the early stirrings of a money economy, making usury doctrine both a theological and pressing economic policy question for 13th-century Christendom.
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