They Who Give from Evil

They Who Give from Evil: The Response of the Eastern Church to Moneylending in the Early Christian Era considers St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa''s fourth-century sermons against usury. Both brothers were concerned with the economic and theological implications of destructive and corrosive practices of lending at high rates of interest and implications for both on the community and the individual soul of lender and debtor. Analysis of their sermons is placed within the context of early Greek Christian responses to lending and borrowing, which were informed by Jewish, Greek, and Roman attitudes toward debt.