moneylenders

• early creditors controlled body after death

69:5.85. Power—the crav­ing to be mas­ter. Trea­sure lend­ing was car­ried on as a means of en­slave­ment, one hun­dred per cent a year be­ing the loan rate of these an­cient times. The mon­eylen­ders made them­selves kings by cre­at­ing a stand­ing army of debtors. Bond ser­vants were among the ear­li­est form of prop­erty to be ac­cu­mu­lated, and in olden days debt slav­ery ex­tended even to the con­trol of the body af­ter death.

• never employ money-power to gain unfair advantage

132:5.19“5. Hon­est wealth is en­ti­tled to in­ter­est. As long as men bor­row and lend, that which is fair in­ter­est may be col­lected pro­vided the cap­i­tal lent was le­git­i­mate wealth. First cleanse your cap­i­tal be­fore you lay claim to the in­ter­est. Do not be­come so small and grasp­ing that you would stoop to the prac­tice of usury. Never per­mit your­self to be so self­ish as to em­ploy money-power to gain un­fair ad­van­tage over your strug­gling fel­lows. Yield not to the temp­ta­tion to take usury from your brother in fi­nan­cial dis­tress.

• parable of 2 debtors

147:5.4When Si­mon saw all this, he said to him­self: “This man, if he were a prophet, would have per­ceived who and what man­ner of woman this is who thus touches him; that she is a no­to­ri­ous sin­ner.” And Je­sus, know­ing what was go­ing on in Si­mon’s mind, spoke up, say­ing: “Si­mon, I have some­thing which I would like to say to you.” Si­mon an­swered, “Teacher, say on.” Then said Je­sus: “A cer­tain wealthy mon­eylen­der had two debtors. The one owed him five hun­dred denarii and the other fifty. Now, when nei­ther of them had where­with to pay, he for­gave them both. Which of them do you think, Si­mon, would love him most?” Si­mon an­swered, “He, I sup­pose, whom he for­gave the most.” And Je­sus said, “You have rightly judged,” and point­ing to the woman, he con­tin­ued: “Si­mon, take a good look at this woman. I en­tered your house as an in­vited guest, yet you gave me no wa­ter for my feet. This grate­ful woman has washed my feet with tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave me no kiss of friendly greet­ing, but this woman, ever since she came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil you ne­glected to anoint, but she has anointed my feet with pre­cious lo­tions. And what is the mean­ing of all this? Sim­ply that her many sins have been for­given, and this has led her to love much. But those who have re­ceived but lit­tle for­give­ness some­times love but lit­tle.” And turn­ing around to­ward the woman, he took her by the hand and, lift­ing her up, said: “You have in­deed re­pented of your sins, and they are for­given. Be not dis­cour­aged by the thought­less and un­kind at­ti­tude of your fel­lows; go on in the joy and lib­erty of the king­dom of heaven.”