De Virtutibus

for, according to him, gentleness and humanity have not their habitation only in the communion of society which takes place among men, but also of his great liberality and bounty he diffuses it exceedingly, and extends it even to the irrational animals, and to the different species of wholesome trees. And what ordinances he established with respect to each of these things we must proceed to enumerate separately, making our beginning with men.

Therefore Moses forbids a man to lend on usury to his brother, [*]( Deuteronomy xxiii. 19. ) meaning by the term brother not only him who is born of the same parents as one’s self, but every one who is a fellow citizen or a fellow countryman, since it is not just to exact offspring from money, as a farmer does from his cattle.

And he enjoins his subjects not to hang back on that account, and to be more slow to contribute to the necessities of others, but rather with open hands and willing minds very cheerfully to give to those who have need, considering that gratitude may in some degree be looked upon as interest repaid at a more favourable season for what was lent in an hour of necessity, being repaid by the voluntary inclination of the receiver of the kindness. And if a person be not willing wholly to give, still at all events let him lend, so as to give the temporary use of what is wanted freely and cheerfully, without expecting to receive anything beyond the principal.

For in this way the poor will not become poorer, by being compelled to restore more than they received; nor will they who lent be doing iniquity if they only receive back what they lent. And yet they will not receive nothing more, for with the principal, instead of the interest which they have not demanded to receive, they will gain the best and most honourable of all human things, as they will have displayed kindness and magnanimity, and will have earned a fair reputation and [*]( Deuteronomy xxiii. 19. )

for indeed the mightiest monarch appears poor and helpless if he is put in comparison with one single virtue, for he has only inanimate riches buried in his treasuries or in the recesses of the earth, but the wealth of virtue is stored up in the dominant part of the soul; and that purest of all essences, heaven, claims itself a share in that, as likewise does the Creator and Father of the universe, God. Therefore we must look upon and denominate the opulence of money-changers and usurers as poverty, though they appear to themselves to be mighty kings, while they have never beheld that wealth which is really endowed with sight, no not even in their dreams.

And these men run into such extravagances of wickedness, that if they have not money, they make usurious advances even of food, lending it on condition of receiving back again more than they lent. Accordingly, such men will speedily afford a contribution to those who ask for one, preparing famine and scarcity against a time of plenty and abundance, and making a revenue of the hunger of the bellies of miserable men, weighing out the food as it were in a scale, and taking care not to give overweight.

Therefore he necessarily commands those who live under his sacred constitution to avoid every description of revenues of this kind, for all such pursuits were the sign of a thoroughly slavish and illiberal mind, which must be changed into savageness and into the resemblance of brute beasts, before it could adopt them.

Again, among the different commands which conduce to the extension of humanity, there is this one also established, [*]( Leviticus xix. 13. ) that every employer is to pay the wages of the poor man the same day that they are earned, not only because, since he has fulfilled the purpose for which he was hired, it is just that he should without any delay receive the reward of his service, but also because, as some persons have said, since the handicraftsman or burden-carrier is only a daily servant and short lived, suffering hardships with his whole body like any common beast of burden, he fixes all his hopes upon his wages, which if he receives at once, he is rejoiced, being both glad now, and ready to work twice as hard to-morrow with all cheerfulness; but if he does not get his wages, then, besides being exceedingly [*]( Leviticus xix. 13. )

Again, the lawgiver says, let no one who lends on usury enter the house of his debtors to take by force any security or pledge for his debt, [*](Deut. xxiv. 10.) but let him stand without in the outer court, and wait there entreating his debtor quietly to bring him a pledge; and if he have a pledge to give, let him not evade giving it, since it is fitting that the creditor should not by reason of his power behave in an arrogant manner, so as to insult those who have borrowed of him; and that the debtor also should out of his recollection of the loan of another person’s property which he has received, not refuse to give an adequate security.

And who is there who can avoid admiring the proclamation or commandment about reapers and gatherers of the fruit of the vineyard? [*](Deut. xxiv. 19.) For Moses commands that at the time of harvest the farmer shall not gather up the corn which falls from the sheaves, and that he shall not cut down all the crop, but that he shall leave a portion of the field unreaped, by this law rendering the rich magnanimous and communicative of their wealth, from being compelled thus to neglect some portion of their own lawful property, and not to be eager to save it all, nor to collect it all together, not to bring it all home and lay it up in store, and making the poor at the same time more cheerful and contented. For as the poor have no property of their own, he allows them to go into the fields of their fellow countrymen, and to reap of what they have left as if it were their own.

And at the season of autumn he again enjoins the possessors of the land, when they are gathering their fruits, not to pick up those fruits which fall to the ground, nor to glean the vineyards a second time. And he also gives the same command to those who are gathering olives. [*](Deut. xxiv. 20.) Like a most affectionate father, whose children are not all in the enjoyment of equal good fortune, since some of them live in abundance, while others are reduced to the very extremity of poverty; but he, commiserating and pitying them, summons them to partake of the possessions of their brethren, using what thus belongs to others as it were their own, not in so doing inviting them to any action of [*](Deut. xxiv. 10.) [*](Deut. xxiv. 19.) [*](Deut. xxiv. 20.)

But there are men who are so sordid in their minds, being wholly devoted to the acquisition of money and labouring to the death for every description of gain, without paying any attention to the source from which it is derived, that they glean their vineyards again after they have gathered the fruit, and beat their olive branches a second time, and reap the whole of the land which bears barley and the whole of the land which bears wheat, convicting themselves of an illiberal and slavish littleness of soul, and also displaying their impiety;

for they themselves have contributed but a small part of what was necessary for the cultivation of their lands, but the greater number and the most important of the means to render the land fertile and productive have been supplied by nature, such as seasonable rains, a proper temperature of the atmosphere, those nurses of the seeds sown and springing up—heavy and continual dews, vivifying breezes, the beneficial bestowal of the seasons of the year, so that the summer shall not scorch the crops nor the frost chill them, nor the revolutions of spring and autumn deteriorate or diminish what is produced.

And though these men know and actually see that nature is continually perfecting her work by these means, and is enriching them with her abundant bounties, nevertheless they endeavour to appropriate the whole of her liberality to themselves, and, as if they themselves were the causes of everything, they give no share of any of their wealth to any one, showing at one and the same time their inhumanity and their impiety. These men accordingly, since they have not laboured in the cause of virtue of their own free will, he reproves and chastises against their will by his sacred laws, which the virtuous man obeys voluntarily, and the wicked man unwillingly.

The laws command [*]( Deuteronomy xxiv. 4. ) that the people should offer to the priests first fruits of corn, and wine, and oil, and of their domestic flocks, and of wools. But that of the crops which are produced in the fields, and of the fruits of the trees, they should bring in full baskets in proportion to the extent of their lands; with hymns made in praise of God, which the sacred [*]( Deuteronomy xxiv. 4. )

Again. The law says, [*]( Exodus xxiii 4.) if you see the beast of any one of your relations or friends, or, in short, of any man whatever whom you know, wandering in the wilderness, bring him back and restore him to him; and, if the master be a long way off, then keep the animal with your own until he returns, and then he shall receive back the deposit which he has not entrusted to you, but which you, having found, spontaneously restore to him from your own natural feelings of fellowship.

Again. Are not all the enactments about the seventh year so formally established, enjoining the people to leave all the land that year fallow and uncultivated, and allowing the poor to go with impunity over the fields of the rich to gather the fruits which that year grow spontaneously as the gift of nature, most merciful and humane ordinances?

The law says, [*]( Exodus xxiii, 10. )"Six years let the inhabitants of the land enjoy the fruits as a reward for the acquisitions which they have made and for the labours which they have undergone in cultivating the land; but for one year, namely, the seventh, let the poor and needy enjoy it, as no work pertaining to agriculture has been done in that year." For, if any work had been done, it would have been absurd for one man to labour and for another to reap the fruit of his labours. But this ordinance was given in order that, the lands being left this year in some manner without any owners, no cultivation of the land contributing to its fertility, the produce, although full and complete, might be seen to proceed wholly from the bounty of God, coming forth as it were to meet and relieve the necessitous.

Again. What are we to say of the commandments given relating to the fiftieth year? [*]( Leviticus xxv. 8. ) Do not they go to the very furthest extent of humanity? And, indeed, who would deny it, unless he had only tasted of this sacred code of laws with anything more than the edges of his lips, and had not feasted [*]( Exodus xxiii 4.) [*]( Exodus xxiii, 10. ) [*]( Leviticus xxv. 8. )

For, in this fiftieth year, all the ordinances which are given relating to the seventh year are repeated, and some of greater magnitude are likewise added, for instance, a resumption of a man’s own possessions which he may have yielded up to others through unexpected necessity; for the law does not permit any one permanently to retain possession of the property of others, but blockades and stops up the roads to covetousness for the sake of checking desire, that treacherous passion, that cause of all evils; and, therefore, it has not permitted that the owners should be for ever deprived of their original property, as that would be punishing them for their poverty, for which we ought not to be punished, but undoubtedly to be pitied.