The Anti-Usury Arguments of The Church Fathers of The East in Their Historical Context and The Accommodation of The Church To The Prevailing "Credit Economy" in Late Antiquity by Antigone Samellas

Journal of Ancient History 2017; 5(1): 134–178
Antigone Samellas*
The anti-usury arguments of the Church
Fathers of the East in their historical context
and the accommodation of the Church to the
prevailing “credit economy” in late antiquity
DOI 10.1515/jah-2016-0017
Abstract: The evidence the Church Fathers offer about the economic practices of
late antiquity are often dismissed as empty rhetoric. The aim of this article is first,
to examine the historical value of their arguments against usury in the light of
papyrological and hagiographic sources as well as οf archaeological findings;
secondly, to assess the extent to which the churches and monasteries in Syria and
Egypt accommodated themselves to the “credit economy” of late antiquity; and,
thirdly, to evaluate the reasons for the church’s compromise with the established
credit practices and its impact on the implementation of the Christian redistribu-
tive ideals.
Keywords: ancient debt, ancient conspicuous consumption, ancient exploitation,

ancient corruption, ancient charity
Christianity challenged the classical notion of justice, which rested on the ideal of
a meritocratic elitist reciprocity, to herald a redistributive justice that would take
into account the needs of the poor.1 Hence God cancels the debts of his servants,
Christ ransoms with his blood humankind from debt bondage, taken to imply its
servitude to sin, and, overturning the established relation between lender and
borrower, inaugurates a new kind of contract which equated charity to the poor
with lending to the Lord. Furthermore, ample rewards were reserved for the
magnanimous lender, but only in the afterlife.2 Μetaphor did not negate but
1 The argument is spelled out in Samellas (2010), 225–249.

2 Matt 18:23–35; Luke 6:34–35; “If you give to the poor you lend to the Lord”: Prov 19:17; for the
concrete ways that sin and debt are implicated in the Gospels, see Eubank (2013), 48–49, 54–55,
60–61, 155. δὸς καὶ ἐγὼ ἀποδώσω, ... ἐν χειρογράφῳ δημοσίῳ τῆς οἰκουμένης (Gregory of Nyssa,
*Corresponding author: Antigone Samellas, Pontou 3, 14671 Athens Greece,

E-Mail: antigonesam@gmail.com
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The Anti-Usury Arguments of the Church Fathers 135
rather enhanced the resonance of the primary, literal, material sense which
formed its kernel. Forgiveness of sins was premised on the absolution of debts.3
The Lord’s Prayer echoed the language of the decrees of the Ptolemies who not
only remitted debts but proclaimed an amnesty “for all the subjects to their
basileia for errors, crimes, accusations, condemnations, and charges of all kinds
...”4 In fact, in the most subversive rendering of the Lord’s Prayer, in the version
of Q text, the cancellation of debts by the lenders of the earthly realm was seen as
prior to divine forgiveness.5
In the period under study the Church Fathers recommended the tearing
asunder of the legal agreements signed by the creditor and the borrower irrespec-
tive of whether these were perceived as fair or unjust.6 Chrysostom interpreted the
parable of the dishonest steward in Luke 16:1–13, which, according to one recent
plausible interpretation,7 refers to the voluntary remission of the debts of the
tenants, practiced by the landlords in the hope that in the future the insolvent
debtors might be able to pay at least a part of the amount owed to them8, as
meaning a total and unqualified forgiveness of debts.9 Gregory of Nyssa demysti-
fied the benefactor’s ideology, which saw the usurious contracts as being con-
Contra Usurarios 198, 21–23); cf. Chrysostom, Hom. Rom. VII,7–8 (PG 60: 451–453); but God also
appeared as a trustworthy banker who remunerated those who gave away their money for their
philanthropy: μὴ καθυβρίσῃς τὸν θεὸν μηδὲ ἡγήσῃ τῶν τραπεζιτῶν ἀτιμότερον οἷς ἀναμφιβόλως
πιστεύεις. ... δὸς ἀκαπήλευτον τὴν εὐεργεσίαν, καὶ ὄψει σοι τὸν θεὸν μετὰ προσθήκης ἀποδιδόντα
τὴν χάριν (Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Usur., 199, 6–7, 10–11).
3 “In Aramaic the same word means sin or debt (hôbâ)”: Oakman (2014), 75.
4 C. Ord. Ptol. 53 and SB 8.9899 cited and translated by Bazzana (2011), 517. It is important to note
that “the global cancellation was extended to what each subject in the kingdom owed to another:”
Bazzana, ibid. Indugentia debitorum, concerning tax arrears owed to the state also practiced in the
late Roman Empire: CT 5.11.11 (A.D. 386); 11.28.1 (A.D. 363); 11.28.9 (A.D. 414).
5 Q 11:2b-4: “Father—may your name be kept holy!—let your reign come: our day’s bread give us
today; and cancel our debts for us, as we too have cancelled for those in debt to us; and do not put
us to the test!” Bazzana (2011), 512. Q 11:2b-4 as a concrete response to the rising peasant
indebtedness in rural Palestine in the time of Jesus in Oakman (2014), 71–77, 23–38. It is also
interesting to note that “few Christians today recognize that when they pronounce the word
‘Hallelujah’ they are repeating the ritual term alulu chanted to signify the freeing of Babylonian
debt slaves.” Dandamaev (1984) cited in Hudson (1993), 27.
6 Ἐὰν χρεωφειλέτην λάβῃς προσπίπτοντα, πᾶσαν συγγραφὴν ἄδικον ἢ καὶ δικαίαν διάσπασον
(Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 40.31, text from Moreschini 2012, 958); cf. Chrysostom, Hom. Rom.
XVIII,6 (PG 60:581); Hom. Matt. LVI, 5 (PG 58:555).
7 Goodrich (2012), 563–565.
8 Evidence from Roman Egypt in Goodrich (2012), 559–562; for the West see Brown (2012), 60.
9 Διά τοι τοῦτο καὶ ἐκεῖνον τὸν οἰκονόμον ὁ Χριστός ἐπήνεσε τὸν ἠνίκα ἔμελλε κινδυνεύειν τὰ
γραμματεῖα διαλύσαντα καὶ χρεωκοπίαν ἐργασάμενον (Chrysostom, Exp. Ps. CXI, 4, PG 55:295).

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136 Antigone Samellas
sensual legal deeds of mutual benefit to both parties,10 by describing the agree-
ment signed by the creditor and the borrower as an act of fraud that reduced the
debtor to the utmost destitution:
“If someone takes someone else’s money by force ... he is called a violent criminal, but the
one who advertises his felony in financial agreements ... and who enforces his crime by
contracts is called a benefactor ... and the profit from thieving is called loot, but the person
who strips his debtor naked by this kind of compulsion gives his harshness the euphemism
‘philanthropy’.”11
In the ideal world of the Apophtegmata Patrum interest free loans were given
which were repaid miraculously. An incident that took place in Arabia in Egypt is
instructive in that regard: John the Persian borrowed a golden coin from a fellow
monk in order to buy the linen necessary for his work. In spite of this, when a
fellow monk approached him and asked him to let him use some of his linen to
make a lebiton, presumably for himself, and then another brother made a similar
request for the purpose of weaving a small piece of cloth, he eagerly lent the linen
to the two monks. The lender of the golden coin however wanted his money back,
so John went to the oikonomos of the monastery and asked for a coin. The steward
was prepared out of philanthropy to cover the debt of his brother. Yet, in the end,
John found by chance a golden coin on the ground and handed it over to the
oikonomos telling him to pay back the loan to the monk who had helped him buy
the linen on his behalf. Subsequently, whenever a brother asked him to use one
of his belongings, he let him take it and never made a claim on the object lent
when it was not returned to him.12
Monks may have bought raw materials in the market, but the assumption was
that they would never use them for commercial purposes but to satisfy their own
needs.13 Secondly, they should not consider lending a profit-seeking activity but a
philanthropic gesture that put their personal belongings to common use. Indica-
tive of their anxiety-ridden attitude towards the market is the following episode: a
brother confessed to his superior that he felt troubled whenever he went to the
10 Benefactor’s ideology attested by a banker in an inscription from Cirta in Africa: omnibus

communis ergo: cui non misertus?, cited in Veyne (2000), 1189. For the way the lender put on the
appearance of friendliness to entice the borrower to accept his onerous terms, see Basil of
Caesarea, Hom. Ps. XIV, 1 (PG 29:265).
11 Gregory of Nyssa, Eccl. 345, 16–346, 5; trans. Hall and Moriarty (1993), 80.
12 AP 6.8, text from Guy (1993), 318–322. On the miraculous economy, see Déroche (1996), 246;
Llewellyn Ihssen (2016), 51–52.
13 Λεβίτων, κολόβιον, χιτών were shortsleeved or sleeveless tunics. They were produced in
Pachomian monasteries for internal consumption. Iconographic evidence shows peasants and
workers wearing this type of garment: Mossakowska-Gaubert (2004), 155, 157, 162.

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market to sell the product of his manual labor. The abbot told him that there was
nothing harmful in this activity, provided that he did not persistently seek to sell
his object, only once he needed to cry its price, and then it was up to him to lower
the market value of the product a little. Thus, he would find rest.14
What the abbot is saying obliquely is that the monk should avoid haggling
with the buyer15 and sell his product at a cheap price without outbidding his
competitors,16 but only meet his personal needs and make a meagre profit, if at
all. In the early fifth century a canon of Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa, stipulated: “If
one shall sell the crop for the benefit of the monastery, he shall not take some-
thing more, except the price as it sells at the time of that threshing-season.”17
While Evagrius Ponticus advised: “Whether you are selling or buying, take a
small loss on the just price.”18
In the hagiographic sources and in canon law the fair price was set at the
lower end of, or by a small margin, below the market value. To a certain extent,
this reflected the imperial legislation which not only took into account the market
price of products in a specific city but also tried to curb overcharging and the
speculation that was rampant during periods of scarcity.19 A series of papyri
14 AP 6.15, text from Guy (1993), 324–325; cf. “We must strive to ensure that the products of our
work are not disposed of at a distance and that we do not go about hawking them in public.
Consequently, we will prefer to retreat somewhat from the price than go beyond our vicinity for
the sake of some small gain.” (Basil of Caesarea, Reg. fus. 37, PG 31:1017–20; trans. Silvas 2005,
249). “Legitimate was the purchase of a product for work and the sale of a product whose value
was dependent on the technical skill involved. In this case one was not allowed to talk about
trade”: Salamito (2006), 14 with reference to Opus Imperfectum in Matt 38 (PG 56:840).
15 They should “name the price just once and silently accept what was given them in peace.”
(Apophtegm Agathon 98 [16] cited in Wipszycka 2011, 231), cf. 235.
16 On the competition between artisans or traders who were selling their products, see:
ἐπορθρίζει ταῖς ἐμπορίαις ὁ κάπηλος, πρὸ τῶν ὁμοτέχνων τὸ οἰκεῖον ἐπιδεῖξαι τοῖς ὠνουμένοις
φιλονεικῶν ὡς ἂν προλάβοι τοῦ δεομένου τὴν χρείαν, ὑποφθάσας τοὺς ἄλλους, καὶ τὸ οἰκεῖον
ἀπεμπολήσειεν. (Gregory of Nyssa, Or. Dom. 6, 5–9).
17 Rabbula, Canon 25 cited in Adesi (1990), 194. For the precise margin of profit only comparative
evidence from rabbinical sources is available. The Jewish Sages allowed the seller to raise the
price of a product up to one-sixth of its purchase price: Rosenfeld and Menirav (2001), 361.
18 Evagrius Ponticus, Fond. 8 (PG 40:1260); trans. Sinkewicz (2003), 9.
19 Fair price as the price a product fetched in the local urban market: evidence from second-
century Athens and fourth-century Antioch and Palestine in Lo Cascio (2006), 230; Rosenfeld and
Menirav (2001), 364. The just price as the market price, or the regulated price or the administered
price: Laiou (2002), 1132: “Almost all of these possibilities were present in Byzantium, with
different weight at different times.” The state tried to check the rise of prices occasioned by those
who abused their power in conditions of scarcity: these might be the workers who, exploiting the
objective shortage of manpower after the Justinianic plague, tried to triple their wages—see Nov.
122—or grain merchants in times of famine. Sarris (2015), 168–170.

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dating from the fifth century shows that the authorities were interested in compar-
ing prices from the different localities of Egypt so as to be better able to supervise
the market.20
Interest rates were also regulated by law. In A.D. 386 a law in the Theodosian
Code stipulated: “If any person taking advantage of the urgency of the needs of a
debtor should extort anything beyond 1 % per month, 12 % a year, allowed by law

he shall immediately restore what was rapaciously taken and he shall be obliged
to pay fourfold the amount as penalty.”21 It was not any change in the supply of,
and demand for, money that determined the rate of interest but custom. Accord-
ingly, the control of inflation after 350 and the introduction of the solidus did not
lower the interest rates in Egypt.22 Emperor Justinian declared his respect for “the
established ... customs”23 when he set the terms of maritime loans in 540, but,
overall, he tried to lower the interest rates probably with a view to implementing
the principles of the Christian moral economy.24
In the eyes of the Church Fathers the market was a dangerous place.25 It was
the realm of the Mammon, the breeding ground of greed, for it enslaved whoever
frequented it to the conjectural needs to which the fancies of the public gave rise.
What gave value to products, according to Chrysostom, was not their intrinsic
usefulness, or the rational choice of the buyers, but the conventional preferences
of society at a given time and place. Each social layer sought to imitate the tastes
20 P. Oxy. 51.3628–36, Parsons (2007), 104–105; also about A.D. 310–360 retailers, perfume-
sellers, salt-merchants, fish-sauce sellers, informed, every month, the authorities of the purchase
price of their products: P. Oxy. 54.3731 and Parsons (2007), 106.
21 CT 2.33.2. In 405 senators were allowed to lend money at 6 % a year: CT 2.33.4. While the

lender of wine, oil or any other farm produce was allowed to charge 50 % : CT 2.33.1.

22 Carrié (2003), 267. Also comparative evidence, from ancient Near East, Greece and Rome
shows that interest rates remained stable throughout the centuries; they were calculated “at
standardized rates” in a way “that aimed at achieving a numerical ease,” see Hudson (2000), 137,
157.
23 Nov. 106, 1. As the shipmasters explained to Justinian, according to ancient custom, there
were various kinds of maritime loans. Interests for loans to shipmasters varied from 10 % on the

value of the loan when the borrower accepted to ship wheat or barley for the creditor for free to
12.5 % when this did not happen and the vessel remained away, at least, for a year, while when it

returned promptly the interest was lower: Nov. 106, pr. The law was repealed a year later.
24 Loans to shipmasters in the legislation of Justinian are set, in CI 4.32.26.2 of A.D. 528 and in
Nov. 110 of 541 at 12 % per year, to farmers loans in kind at 12 %, to churches and other pious

institutions at 3 % (Nov. 120, of A.D. 544, section 6, lines 28–30), for the merchants and bankers at

8 %, for the high aristocracy at 4 % and for the rest at 6 %. Gofas (2002), 1095–1098.

25 Ἂν δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς οἰκίας ἐπὶ τὴν ἀγορὰν ἔλθῃς, γυμνὸς τῶν ὅπλων [without the protection of
prayer] τούτων εὑρεθεὶς, εὐχείρωτος ἔσῃ τοῖς ἐπηρεάζουσιν ἅπασι (Chrysostom, Hom. Rom. 12:
20, 3, PG 51: 177).

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and buying preferences of those immediately above it. Unwittingly, the relatively
affluent strata were driven to the life style of the aristocracy. Everybody tried to
outbid in display the one immediately above him.26 Therefore, as we shall see,
“the middle classes”27 ran into debt to meet the requirements of conspicuous
consumption. Indeed, one has first to assess the extent and different forms of
indebtedness in late antiquity in order to understand why the religion that
condemned usury, for some of the reasons that will be analyzed below, resorted
to credit, both as a lender as well as a borrower, in order to finance its charitable
program.
I Borrowing and conspicuous consumption

According to Gregory of Nyssa, although humans should have been content with
the satisfaction of their elementary needs, they were carried away by prejudice
and sought to surpass the limits of necessity. Everyone strove to procure every
pleasure and delight for the eyes and he even regretted that he could not have the
sky as his rooftop and a house as spacious as the globe.28 In search of refinement
and distinction (ἡ ἐπιθυμία τῆς περιεργίας) he used marble from Numidia, Thes-
saly and Syene of Egypt for the columns that supported the porticoes, and
Phrygian stone to decorate the interior of his houses. His eyes were lusting after
the pleasure produced by the fortuitous combinations of purple die sprinkled on
26 οὐδὲν κρίσει πράττομεν ἀλλ΄ ἁπλῶς καὶ ὡς ἔτυχεν ... Καλὰ τὰ σηρικὰ ἱμάτια; ... ὑπόληψις ἐστι
καὶ πρόληψις ἀνθρώπινη, οὐκ ἐν τῇ φύσει τὸ κάλλος ἔχει (Chrysostom, Hom. 1Tim. XVII, PG
62:596). On the mimetic origins of greed see: ἕκαστος τὸν πρὸ αὐτοῦ ζηλοῦντες ἐπέτεινον τὸ
νόσημα, καὶ τὸν οὐ βουλόμενον ὁ προλαβών ἐρεθίζει. Ὅταν γὰρ ἴδωσιν οἰκίας λαμπρὰς ... καὶ
ἀργυρᾶ σκεύη, ... πάντα πράττουσιν, ὥστε υπερβάλλεσθαι· ὥστε οἱ πρῶτοι τῶν δευτέρων αἴτιοι
γίνονται, κἀκεῖνοι τῶν μετ’αὐτούς. (Chrysostom, Hom. Jo. LXV, 3, PG 59:364).
27 How do we define “the middles classes”? From their houses which paid lip service to
“peristyle traditions by using an odd mosaic or column,” e.g. the House of Bronzes at Sardis.

Tradesmen, builders or public officials, chartularii or numerarii (i.e. accountants in the offices of

provincial governors), might be their owners: Ellis (2004) 43, 45; (1997) 46; Heads of workshops,
skilled workers like the one who worked in a perfume shop for three years in A.D. 549 (P. Med. I
48) for a rather high remuneration belonged to this middle stratum: Freu (2015), 171. Archeological
remains of macella from Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, attest to the relative well-being of some
shopkeepers, blacksmiths, glassblowers, painters, perfumers, bakers and beansellers from the
fourth to the sixth century: Lavan (2012), 344, 366, 363.
28 ὅσα τῇ αἰσθήσει καλά ἐστι ... διὰ ματαίας προλήψεως ὡς κατ’ἀλήθειαν ὄντα τοῖς ἀπαιδεύτοις
νομίζεται ... Ὡς γὰρ οὐχὶ σώματι τὸ χρειῶδες πορίζων, ἀλλὰ τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἐπιτηδεύων τέρψεις
καὶ ἐντρυφήματα λυπεῖται σχεδὸν ὅτι μὴ τὸν οὐρανὸν ἐποίησεν ὑπορώφιον ... (Gregory of Nyssa,
Eccl. 422, 4, 7, 8; 320, 9–12, 15).

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the whiteness of the marble as well as by the variegated colors tainting the purity
of glass, not to speak of the mosaics dazzling with their brilliance even the feet of
those treading on them.29 The capitals of the doorways were embellished with
ivory, overpainted with gold and silver hammered on with studs. Everything
“contrived for a striking and elegant effect:” the multiple entrance-porches, gates
and gateways, the ostentatious baths “gushing with floods of water” and, adja-
cent to these, the gymnasiums, and, across the porticoes encircling the building,
the marble statues and the paintings, which “prostitute the eyes” by representing
the nakedness that ought not to have been seen.30
The passionate eroticized attachment to matter knew no bounds, the need for
luxury increased every day, seeking to appropriate for one’s own enjoyment all
the produce of the earth.31 Asterius of Amasea described luxurious banquets in
Pontus which included wine from Phoenicia, pheasants, dishes seasoned with
Indian condiments and served in silver vessels to the accompaniment of musi-
cians, dancers and mimes. It was as if the host’s worth was reflected in the
brilliance of his possessions.32 Chrysostom complained that it was impossible for
his contemporaries to use furniture simply to rest; instead they preferred to show
off to their guests by presenting at their dinners silver bounded ivory couches
with soft mattresses.33
The scarcity prestige of a good determined its worth. According to Chrysos-
tom, silk clothes were considered a luxury merchandise in Antioch but were
cheap in the region of Serians from which they were imported. The same was true
for the spices and perfumes brought from Arabia and India which were cheap in
their place of origin but expensive in Antioch. It is clear that the more expensive
and rare a product was, the more sought-after it became by the elite across
the empire.34 Every year merchants went to foreign lands, and contracted a
loan to build ships and hire crews, in order to fetch exotic products to their
29 Eccl., 322, 10–12; 321, 1–8, 323, 8–12; trans. Hall and Moriarty (1993), 63–64.
30 Eccl., 322, 7–9; 322, 16–324, 2; trans. Hall and Moriarty (1993), 64.
31 Αὔξουσα γὰρ καθ’ἡμέραν ἐπὶ τὸ περιεργότερον ἡ τρυφὴ (Asterius of Amasea, 1.5.3); ὡς μικρὰς
πόλεις οἰκοῦσι τὰς οἰκίας, λουτροῖς καὶ οἴκοις ποικίλοις καὶ στοαῖς ... παντοίᾳ πολυτελείᾳ κεκοσ-
μημένας (3.12.32).
32 1.5.3; ὁ μάτην πλουτῶν τῷ κόσμῳ τῆς κλίνης περιαστράπτεται, ἀργυρᾶς σφαίρας ἐχούσης καὶ
ἁλύσεις ἀντὶ τῶν σχοίνων (Asterius of Amasea, 3.12.4).
33 μὴ μοι κλίνας ἀργυρενδέτους κατασκεύαζε, ἀλλὰ κέχρησο κλίνῃ καὶ στρώμασι μὴ πρὸς ἐπίδειξ-
ιν πεποιημένοις, ἀλλὰ πρὸς ἀνάπαυσιν, μηδὲ ἐλεφάντινας κλίνας· σύστειλον σαυτόν (Chrysostom,
Hom. Eph. XIII, 4, PG 62:98).
34 Hom. 1.Tim. XVII, 3 (PG 62:596); exotic products, textiles and perfumes, from India and Persia
also in Hom. II, 3 (PG 62:513). Certainly, Chrysostom was aware that supply and demand deter-
mined the value of a product: Mitchell (2004), 108.

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clients.35 Archeological findings from late antique Corinth, Halicarnassos and

Apameia confirm the expensive taste of the imperial and civic aristocracy.36 Those
who could not import diamond-bordered ivory panels from India or Alexandria
had objects made of bone in their houses. In the fourth century “the volume of
objects of bone increased parallel to those of ivory, as the less wealthy emulated
the luxurious possessions of the elite.”37
According to the testimony of Basil of Caesarea, artisans often incurred debts
in order to imitate the life-style of the higher classes. For a short while after they
had received the money from the lender they radiated with a false brilliance,
borrowed from elsewhere, evocative of the splendor of their new way of life. Now
no delicacies were missing from their table, and at the instigation of their wives,
they bought more expensive garments and dressed their children in comelier
clothes and put more refined and variegated cloaks on their slaves and hosted
flatterers and symposiasts at their house.38 But their joy did not last for long. As
soon as the money ran dry “they began to hate the days rushing towards the
deadline and to fear the months that fathered interests.” “Having given them-
selves over to profligacy and useless luxuries” they tried to meet the obligations
of the first loan by contracting a debt with another banker so as to flee insolvency.
35 σὺ δὲ εἰς Ἰνδοὺς ἐμπορεύῃ καὶ βαρβαρικῇ παρακινδυνεύεις θαλάσσῃ καὶ ἐνιαυσίοις ναυτιλίαις
σεαυτὸν ἐπιδίδως ἵνα τοῖς ἐκεῖθεν ἀγωγίμοις τήν τροφὴν ἡδύνῃς (Gregory of Nyssa Or. Dom. 52, 9–
12); καὶ γὰρ ὁ ἔμπορος θέλει πλουτεῖν ... ἀλλὰ καὶ πλοῖον κατασκευάζεται καὶ συνάγει ναύτας, ...
καὶ χρυσίον δανείζεται καὶ περᾷ πέλαγος, καὶ εἰς ξένην ἄπεισι γῆν (Chrysostom, Hom. Jo. 3, PG
59:28); famous Muziris papyrus (P. Vind. G 40822) indicates the astronomical sums involved to
finance by credit a trip with predominantly luxury goods from Muziris (modern Cranganore) in
India to Myos Hormoson in the Red Sea in the mid-second century and certainly attests to the
enormous wealth of the elite; for this and for traditional arguments against the corrupting effects
of oriental luxuries, see Parker (2002), 64, 75.
36 Corinth: Rife (2010), 736–740; in late antiquity we witness a “surge in architectural creativity
and eccentricity” and during dining “external viewing takes precedence over exchange within the
group”: Stephenson (2016), 60, 63, 68. To the aristocracy belonged members of the imperial court,
like Charidemos, who has left his epigraphic traces in a villa in fifth-century Halicarnassos and
Apellios in sixth-century Apamea. For the former Ellis (2004), 42–43, and for the latter Balty
(1997), 92. For archeological finds of gilded drinking glasses, silver knives with ivory handles,
silver dishes and textiles with Dionysiac scenes used in the dining room, see Vroom (2007), 345,
362, 332, 328, n. 36. Luxurious clothes decorated couches, dining seats (stoibas) and doors:
Asterius, 1.5.2; late antique textiles with mythological and hunting scenes and personifications of
seasonal bounty from late antique Egypt, illustrated in Thomas (2016), 21–53.
37 Stern and Hadjilazaro-Thimme (2007), 302; diamond-bordered panel, Nr. 113, 69–70. Chris-
tian taste for luxury: About A.D. 432, Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria sent ivory chairs to the
Patriarch of Constantinople: ibid., 297.
38 Basil of Caesarea, Hom. Ps. XIV, 4 (PG 29:276), on this passage see Giacchero (1979), 457; Hom.
Ps. XIV, 2 (PG 29:268).

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Rich only in their dreams, they borrowed and spent without respite till they lost
everything.39
For Chrysostom the ruinous pursuit of distinction was tantamount to an
infatuation with empty images. Everyone was obsessed with how he would
appear in the public eye: like the lovesick man that clings to the soulless picture
of the woman he desires many would run wild whenever they saw tokens, or even
artistic reproductions, of wealth. While traversing the marketplace they would fix
their gaze dumfounded on the wealthy, admiring their expensive clothes and
their horses with the golden harnesses and their slaves strutting, sick with long-
ing to possess the product of their fancy.40 As a result the working poor did
everything possible to obtain beautiful clothes and purchase a household slave.
Some would even prefer to die of hunger than deprive themselves of silver
dishes.41
The Christianization of the symbols of status hardly affected the climate of
display. According to Asterius when members of the aristocracy came out in
public, they were dressed in such a fashion that they appeared “like painted
walls” to those they met for their “gay-colored dresses” were ornamented with
“leopards, bears, dogs, trees and rocks.” “And the more religious among them”
had ordered the weavers to decorate their expensive clothes with stories from the
Gospels, “Christ together with all his disciples and each one of the miracles ... In
doing this they consider themselves to be religious and to be wearing garments
that are pleasing to God.” Asterius frowned upon a religiosity that was as ostenta-
tious as the elaborate clothes that advertised it. Even if the figures on the
garments were supposed to magically evoke or invite the good fortune of their
owner and avert the evil eye, as Henry Maguire has written, the fact remains that
in late antiquity luck and divine favor were thought to prove that one was wealthy
by merit; a widespread conviction that was very difficult for the Church Fathers to
eradicate.42
How can we verify that the frenzy for prestigious goods among the affluent
strata was financed by credit? Throughout the period under study the well to do
39 Ibid.
40 Hom. 1Cor. XI, 4 (PG 61:92–93); cf. Hom. 2Cor. XXIV, 4 (61:568–569); for other passages see
Lavan (2007), 162–167; Leyerle (1994), 29–36.
41 Chrysostom, De inan. gl. 13, 14, text from Malingrey (1972), 90, 175–180; 92, 205–94, 208.
42 Asterius, 1.3.1.-1.4.3; trans. in Maguire (1990), 220; and for his interpretation, see 217–220;
iconographic evidence from Tunisia shows that this expensive taste for ornament was diffused
among wealthy peasants and gladiators: Baratte (2004), 122–124; luxurious clothes were capital
to be stored: 126; ἀλλ’ ἤδη τινές, φησί, καὶ ἀρχῶν καὶ πλούτου καὶ τιμῶν ἠξιώθησαν, εὐχῇ πρὸς
τοῦτο χρησάμενοι, καὶ θεοφιλεῖς εἶναι διὰ τῆς ταύτης εὐκληρίας ὑπενοήθησαν (Gregory of Nyssa,
Or. Dom. 17, 19–22).

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were often in debt for they borrowed money to buy some “profitable magis-
tracy.”43 Apart from that, in an early seventh-century source we encounter a
silversmith, who was in a difficult financial situation, being advised to buy a
relatively expensive slave by contracting a loan and it is also attested that
during the reign of Justinian men of considerable wealth borrowed money from
bankers to buy houses in the name of their wife or of some other relative of
theirs.44
The ownership of a house, along with the possession of a number of slaves,
distinguished the more prosperous members of the middle classes from the rest of
the population. The relatively affluent assistants of Libanius in the municipal
school of Antioch, when the city stopped paying them or remunerated them after
a long delay,45 found themselves in dire economic straits. Indicative of their
dismal position, according to the Antiochene rhetor, was that they could no
longer afford to own a house or possess many slaves: “some of them have no little
place of their own but live in rented rooms like cobblers. Anyone who has bought
a house, has not yet paid off the loan, so that the house purchaser is worse off
than those who are not [owners] of their house. As for slaves, one has three,
another two, another not even that many ...”46 They used to go to the silversmith
to buy jewels but now they had to hand over their wife’s ear-rings to the baker
because they had pledged them to him each time they went to borrow corn from
him. Many of them even avoided marriage for they could not support them-
selves.47
When in the late fourth century in Amasea in Pontus the congregation of
Bishop Asterius heard him recommending to them not to be preoccupied with
money they usually retorted: “How are we going to live without money? How
43 ἀξιώματα κερδαλέα ὠνήσασθαι ... τὸ πᾶν ἀπώλεσαν (Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. XXVIII, 5, PG
57:358). In the early fifth century, Synesius of Cyrene wrote that “those who would rule us in Libya
Superior and Libya Inferior as well as in Egypt could not pass unnoticed for they were followed by
a cortege of creditors.” (Synesius of Cyrene, Ep. 101, text from Garzya 2000, 225, 25–28). The well-
to do tried to write off the debts incurred for the purchase of office by exploiting the provincials.
Justinian’s Nov. 8 pr. (A.D. 535).
44 Leontius of Neapolis, Life of John the Almsgiver 370, 106–116, ὥς τινες μὲν δανεισάμενοι ἢ
δανειζόμενοι παρὰ τῶν ἐκ τῶν ἐκ τοῦ εἰρημένου συστήματος χρήματα ἠγόρασαν ἢ ἀγοράζουσι
κτῆσιν ἀκίνητον ὀνόματι τῶν οἰκείων γαμετῶν ἢ ἄλλων τινῶν ... ὥστε διὰ τῆς τοιαύτης μεθόδου
ἐκείνους μὲν ἀπορίαν προΐσχεσθαι (CJ Ed. 7.7).
45 Τradesmen talked about the teachers’ high incomes: Or. 31.25; trans. Norman (2000), 77.
Sources and difficulties of payment: Or. 31.22, 16, 19; trans. Norman (2000) 76, 74, 75.
46 Or. 31.11; trans. Norman (2000), 73.
47 Or. 31.12–13; trans. Norman (2000) 73. Order on bankers to pay one’s house rent: καὶ τόκους
αὐτοὺς τελεῖν καὶ στεγονόμια διδόναι (Justinian, Ed. 9.7.2); Barnish (1985), 21.

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shall we satisfy our needs? How shall we pay back our debts? How will it be
possible to forward a loan to the one who is asking for it, if all of us, following
your exhortation, are destitute?”48
The adoption of the gold standard after 350, following the inflationary crisis
of the mid-third century, was conducive to the development of credit.49 The
calculation of the value of the solidus according to its weight in gold, the issuing
by the imperial mints of large quantities of gold coins and the adoption by the
mid-fifth century of gold as a means of payment at all levels of the imperial
bureaucracy as well as a means of payment of the taxes, led to the stabilization of
prices, the circulation of gold in rural areas and the reappearance of credit.50 The
wealthy, according to Gregory of Nyssa, preferred to have no coins in their
houses, but just papers which recorded the obligations of their borrowers. They
were vexed by the gold hidden in the houses for they believed it remained “idle
and unprofitable” unless given out in loans.51 Chrysostom, too, confirmed that the
rich would have left to their children only the debt contracts they had signed with
the borrowers rather than gold, if they could have eliminated the possibility of
dishonesty on the part of their borrowers, for that was more profitable.52 But even
men of more modest means, such as artisans, traders or soldiers, lent money for
48 ... πῶς λυθήσεται τὸ δάνεισμα; πῶς δὲ καὶ δοθήσεται δάνος τῷ ζητοῦντι, ἂν πάντες ὦμεν διὰ
τὴν σὴν παραίνεσιν ἄποροι; (Αsterius, 3.14.1, repeated in 3.15.2). It is also indicative that in Egypt
students who wanted to become scribes exercised in writing contracts of loans: Inv. V. 12–13 (A.D.
352), text from Hoogendijk and van Minnen (1991), 99–104. On the ubiquity of the use of money in
every commercial transaction in urban centers, see also Chrysostom, Hom. princ. Act. IV, 2 (PG 51:
99).
49 On the adverse effect that the inflationary crisis of the mid-third century had on all the
professions that dealt with money and on public foundations and about the recovery that begins
after 350, see Carrié (2003), 266–267.
50 Banaji (2001), 46, 48, 53, 57–58, his findings confirmed and enriched by findings from Egypt
and Northern Africa by Borek (2015), passim; see also Garnsey (2014), 48. Though there was a
monetary decline in coin supply after 408, coins of older centuries were put into circulation “and
the distinction between official and unofficial issues becomes meaningless.” It is during the
second half of Justinian’s reign, and especially after 580, that we start witnessing “a disruption of
the monetary system and growing inflation.” Bijovsky (2014), 164–170, 258. On the constantly
changing, after the fifth century, ratios between the value of the gold solidus and the copper
denominations, see Cameron (1993), 100.
51 Βλέπεις γοῦν τὸν πλούσιον καὶ πολύχρυσον πολλάκις μηδὲ ἓν νόμισμα ἔχοντα ἐπὶ τῆς οἰκίας,
ἀλλ’ ἐν χάρταις τὰς ἐλπίδας, ἐν ὁμολογίαις τὴν ὑπόστασιν, μηδὲν ἔχοντα καὶ πάντα κατέχοντα.
(Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Usur. 198, 7–10; 198, 3–4).
52 Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. LXVI, 5 (PG58:632). “The aggregate volume of loans outstanding at
any given time may have been far from negligible in comparison with the value of landed
property:” van Minnen (2008), 235.

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purposes our sources do not reveal.53 It is impossible to tell whether the consump-
tion of mass-produced standardized items which were subject to the vagaries of
fashion, such as footwear or glassware, was financed by loans.54 Presumably this
type of consumerism, launched by the market integration which was enhanced by
the imperial economy, did not significantly boost the expansion of credit.
The Church Fathers condemned usury because the competitive emulation of
the expensive tastes of the elite by the “middle classes,” the endless refinement of
their buying preferences, led to their perpetually renewable enslavement to
matter and ultimately to their creditors. In the hope of acquiring a higher status,
they ended up losing what they had. Many resorted to suicide to escape the
pressure of the lenders.55 The latter, not infrequently, lost their capital.56
53 Φὲρε οὗν, τὸ τῶν δημιουργῶν γένος καὶ χειροτεχνῶν ἐξετάσωμεν ... ὅπως μὲν χρηματίσωνται
πάντα πράττουσιν ... Τί ἄν τις εἴποι τὰ δανείσματα, τοὺς τόκους (Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. LXI, 2,
PG 58:591). For the profits women of modest means gained from lending in early eighth-century
Egypt, see Wilfong (2002), 128; Soldiers: P. Ness. III.26 (A.D. 570), text from Kraemer (1958), 82–
83; for an earlier period see the testament of the centurion Valerius Eion, from the village of
Karanis whose property included the contracts he had signed with his debtors: SB XX 13479 (A.D.
320) mentioned by Nowak (2010), 178. P. Jen.inv. 96 (around 530 at the Arsinoite nome) testifies,
an acknowledgement of debt of someone who because he had borrowed wheat, barley and
vegetable seed from a flavialis, the title denoted a military grade, promised to deliver the produce
to his creditor at a lower price (sale on delivery): Ast (2004), 139–141; In the early sixth-century
leontoclibanarii, i.e. members of the elite equestrian corps (vexillatio), appear as creditors in CPR

24, Nr. 18, (A.D. 502, Aphroditopolis) and in Nr. 19, 117–121 (A.D. 546 Arsinoite): Palme (2002),
112–119.
54 On these phenomena, see van Driel-Murray (2016), 142–143, 134–136; Wilson (2008), 393.
Certainly there was also a customary ritual indebtedness incurred during weddings and festivals.
It was taken for granted that the poor would borrow the clothes they would wear for a wedding:
The Miracles of St. Artemios, text from Crisafuli and Nisbitt (1997), 120 (early seventh century). In
400 the Festival of Kalends was deemed to be “the source of debt and usury;” “soldiers offer their
entire wage for one debauchery.” (Asterius of Amasea, Or. 4.5.1; 4.7.1). Also on the occasion of a
festival in Tiberias, the poor would borrow money from their employer to go to the market, see
Lapin (2011), 151.
55 Ἀλλὰ πολλοὶ, φησὶ καὶ ἐκ δανεισμάτων ἐπλούτησαν. Πλείους δὲ οἷμαι, καὶ βρόχων ἥψαντο
(Basil of Caesarea, Hom. Ps. XIV, 4, PG 29:277); πόσοι διὰ τόκον ἀγχόνης ἥψαντο (Gregory of
Nyssa, Contra Usur. 203, 15). Cf. John Moschοs, Pratum Spirituale, 207 (PG 87 (3):3097); Libanius,
Or. 57.31, text from Casella (2010), 102.
56 “Many, on many occasions, wishing to lend at large usury, and through the expectation of
gain not having inquired about them who receive their money, have together with the interest lost
also their capital:” (Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. XXVIII, 5, PG 57:357, trans. Llewellyn Ihssen 2012,
119). A source from the second/third century shows that lending also had its risks: δανείσας,
βραδέως λήψῃ μετὰ μάχης ... λαμβάνεις τὸ ἀργύριον κόπῳ πολλῷ ... δανείζῃ καὶ οὐ ζημιοῦσαι
κερδαίνεις. (Sortes Astrampsychi, 52, 4; 79, 8; 9, 8, text from Stewart 2001, 48, 65, 22). The clients
of the oracles were middle class: Naether (2010), 243.

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Lending was viewed as an investment. Around 600 in Nisibis a pagan told his
Christian wife: “Let us lend out the money [the fifty miliarisia they had] and get
some advantage from it, for in drawing on it a little at a time, we are going to
spend it all.” The Christian wife following the logic of investment in order to
reverse it, advised him to lend God by giving alms to the poor for thus his capital
would be doubled.57 From the point of view of the Church Fathers, investment in
loans was a means of self-aggrandizement. For that reason, they refused, in
principle, donations to the church from the profits of usury,58 saying that the so-
called philanthropy of the lender was tantamount to exploitation.
II Exploitation
“The exactions of the greedy usurer like a sickle winnow the property of the oppressed at the
threshing-floor of their home. The usurer considers everything his own. He prays for afflic-
tion and misfortune to befall on men so that they will be compelled to go to him. He hates
those who are self-sufficient and those who have not borrowed from him he considers his
enemies. He watches courts of law to find men hard-pressed by the officials who sue them
for fiscal debts and follows tax collectors, who demand arrears to the state, like vultures
follow the troops in times of war [to feed on the bodies of the dead].”59
Indeed, everyday life confirmed the observations of Gregory of Nyssa. The usurers
prowled around the courts in search of fiscal debtors or borrowers who could not
meet their obligations to their private creditors. They waited for the moment of the
collection of taxes to raise the interest rates so as to pressure the peasants to cede
them their land, their animals and whatever else of their belongings.60 A court
57 John Moschos, Pratum Spirituale 185 in (PG 87(3).3060), trans. Wortley (1992), 155–156; cf.
Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. LXXVIII, 2 (PG 58:713–714) with the comments of Llewellyn Ihssen (2012),
127. “Loans were a way to diversify investment and spread risks:” Keenan (1992), 175; cf. Bagnall
(1993), 74 and note 183. Of course saving money for illness and old age and thesaurization in the
form of silver vessels did not cease to exist: for the former de Ligt (1990), 45 and for the latter
Baratte (2003), 210–211.
58 Chrysostom urged peasants and craftsmen to donate 1/10 of their surplus to the church. But
he stated that he did not accept the gifts of usurers. Hom.1 Cor. XLIII, 4 (PG 61:373).
59 Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Usur. 197,18–25; for the translation of the last sentence see Palme
(1989), 111; cf. Gregory of Nyssa, Eccl. 345, 7–11. τὰς γὰρ ἀλλότριας ὁ τοιοῦτος πραγματεύεται
συμφορὰς καὶ πρόσοδον τὴν ἑτέρου δυσημερίαν ποιεῖται ... (Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. VI, 5, PG
57:62).
60 Εὔχονται καὶ φόρων ἀνυποίστων φοιτᾶν ἐπιτάγματα, ἵνα τόκοις πλεονάσωσι τὸ ἀργύριον.
Ἐπιθυμοῦσι βλέπειν τοὺς παρὰ τῶν δανειστῶν ἀγχομένους, ἵνα κτήσωνται τὸν ἀγρὸν, ἢ τὸ σκεῦος,

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case might lead someone who had not been able to honor the terms of a business
contract, which also involved a loan, to bankruptcy. In sixth-century Egypt fisher-
men were harassed by a nobleman about a large quantity of fish which they had
not been able to catch and deliver to him. They sought protection from a saint for
they were afraid that the nobleman would hold them liable for the failed delivery
(apparently he had given them money in advance) and would sue them for
damages beyond their ability to pay.61 The relationship between lender and
borrower was deemed exploitative for the former availed himself of the misfor-
tune of the latter in order to augment, to the detriment of the borrower, his landed
property or his capital.
According to Severus of Antioch, the wealthy dragged to court those who
owed them money or using debt as a pretext, imprisoned their borrowers so that
they could strip them of all their possessions.62 Gregory of Nazianzus, speaks of
“the land as being polluted by interests and usury.”63 That usury could lead to the
multiplication of one’s capital is evident from what a possessed man uttered in
front of a high-born monk in sixth-century Egypt (the demon speaking through
the man asked the monk Aaron): “Weren’t your family noble folk who ate up
people with oppressive loans? I remember one day when your father loaned some
man 10 oboloi, and when the man, because of his poverty, could not come up
ἢ τὸ ζῶον, εὐώνως ἐκ τῆς ἀνάγκης ῥιπτόμενον. (Asterius of Amasea, Hom. 3.6.1); cf. Themistius,
Or. 8.115a, text from Downey (1965), 172, 29–173, 3. P. Kru 57: Mena in the district of Koptos handed
over to Ioseph one aroura of land for the latter had lent him money to pay his taxes and promised
to take care of the field work at his own risk; so the owner ceded quasi-ownership rights to the
lender: see also P.KO 28 all cited and commented upon by Urbanik (2013), 168–169, n. 69, 71. Even
a relatively wealthy landowner, harried by the tax collectors during a drought, was forced to ask a
loan of fifty pounds of gold from a military commander of noble origin, offering him “to give
security for double the value, if he wished so.” Leontius of Neapolis, Life of John the Almsgiver 381,
1–11.
61 Life of Abba Aaron, 119 in Vivian (1996), 125; for the date of the composition, which postdates
the death of Aaron, see Dijkstra (2013), 36–39. For a private agreement of sale of fish and the threat
of seeking legal redress in case the fishermen did not honor their promise to deliver the catch at
the due date, see P. Strsb. IV 171 (third c. A.D.) cited and interpreted by Chouliara-Raiou (2003),
268–269. P. Ross-Georg. III 53 that dates from A.D. 674 records the contract a guild of fishermen in
Arsinoe made with a stratelates, which stipulated that they would deliver the fish he had bought
in advance. This agreement was “a sort of loan:” van Minnen (1987), 68.
62 Severus of Antioch, Hom. 63, text from Brière (1982) 303; cf. “a creditor counts up the interest
... and threatens to hand over the wretched debtor to prison if he doesn’t pay immediately his
debt.” (Severus of Antioch, Hom. 13.20; text in the translation of Allen and Hayward 2004, 56;
Alpi, 2009 175); cf. “Your debtor is in prison, while you are in church.” (Gregory of Nyssa, Or. Dom.
69, 19); Chrysostom, Hom. Jo. LXVII, 2 (PG 59:372).
63 Ὁ δὲ τόκοις καὶ πλεονασμοῖς τὴν γῆν ἐμίανε (Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 16.18, text from
Moreschini 2012, 410).

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with the money to pay your father back, your father seized his house in lieu of
payment.”64 Indeed, in the city of Aswan a peasant owed just ten oboloi to a rich
man who lived in the city; though he had promised to pay him the creditor was
intent on taking his vineyard.65 Landowners demanded that peasants give them a
pawn in order to lend them the seed necessary for sowing.66 In the time of
Justinian, in Thrace during a famine the wealthy lent seed to peasants who had
some property at exorbitant rates of interest in order to obtain possession of their
land as well as of their sheep, cattle and slaves.67
Evidence from papyri attest to the “creditors’ habit of asking officials, in
particular the defensor, to lock up debtors in their prison.”68 Women were also
held in prison until their husbands’ debt was repaid. In sixth-century Egypt the
managers of a landholding imprisoned the wife of a letter carrier so that he pay
his debts; his horses, however, which also had been held as a pledge, were given
back to him.69
64 The Life of Abba Aaron 127, in Vivian (1996), 127–128. Cf. The Apion estate, even though it was
of more modest size than was formerly assumed, had separate accounts for properties which it
had acquired from various owners, often through their mortgaging of their land as occurred in the
case of Diogenes with the land he had at Oxyrhynchus in 545. P. Oxy. LXIII 4397 and Hickey
(2012), 21, 154–155.
65 The Life of Abba Aaron 109, Vivian (1996), 121.
66 παρακαλοῦντος δοθῆναι αὐτῷ σῖτον ... πρὸς κατασπορὰν τῆς γῆς καὶ ὁμολογήσαντος αὐτῷ εἰς
τὸν θερισμὸν σὺν τόκῳ τὸ διδόμενον ἀποδιδόναι, οὗτος οὐκ ἠθέλησεν δοῦναι ... εἰ μὴ πρῶτον
δώσῃ αὐτῷ ἐνέχυρον (Theodore bishop of Paphos [Cyprus, A.D. 655], Life of S. Spyridon, bishop of
Trimithonte 14,16–15,4). This practice was quite common in different historical periods. “At
harvest, the suppliers of seed bought part of the crop and gave cash to the farmers who repaid
their lenders, while another part of the crop went directly to the lenders as repayment in kind:”
Papaconstantinou (2016), 634 and 633.
67 Nov. 32.
68 Hillner (2015), 145–146.
69 Berkes (2015), 241–243. Imprisonment of women, and their children, in both public and
private prisons for debts owed by their husbands in Chrysostom, Hom. Rom. X, 2 (PG 60:477);
P. Ryl. Copt. 310 (c. 300–390) and in numerous other examples cited in Kotsifou (2014), 538–
540. After c. A.D. 340 detention for debt of villagers by wealthy landowners became an
increasingly common practice: Rathbone (2008), 205. Guarantors of loans could also find
themselves in trouble: “With unwritten assurances I served as guarantor towards the repayment
of certain debts for Sarapion. I don’t know how, since the person whom I guaranteed was
present and was not trying to flee, he accused me on account of that man, on the pretense that
he (Sarapion) was careless about his obligations, and I was summoned and locked up in public
prison on account of debts, and I was even tortured, which is prohibited by the laws ... in my
own home and then in the public prison ...” (Chr. Mitt. 71, Hermopolis, A.D. 458–473, trans. in
Bryen 2013, 276–277).

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From the fourth century till the age of Justinian the tax on the land increased
from 10 % to 35 %.70 There was greater efficiency in tax-collection owing to the

use of cadastres which facilitated the fiscalization of every plot of land, as well as
of animals, slaves and coloni in collective units.71 Even so, taxation remained
essentially regressive in character given that the principales allotted the tax
burden and the wealthy profited from tax remissions.72 In spite of this, land-
owners tried to recover the profits lost on account of the more burdensome
taxation imposed on them in late antiquity by intensifying the exploitation of
their workers. In the early fifth century, as a homily of Shenoute addressed to the
wealthy Christian landowners of his diocese in Upper Egypt shows, it was a
customary practice to withhold the wages from the workers, or to pay them with
great delay (often, for the purpose of controlling the mobility of the labor force)
and, simultaneously, to forward them loans with the interest explicitly stated or
concealed in the amount of capital given in advance.73 In Panopolis landowners
forced even the laborers in the autonomous villages to build their baths and to
buy their spoilt wine at a high price. As to those who worked their fields they stole
animals from them and purchased what they produced for nothing.74 In Antioch
peasants had to cultivate, along with their own plot, the vines of the wealthy
landlord under the most inhuman conditions. The overseer used their bodies as
beasts of burden. He made them work day and night and he let them go home
starving and in debt. When the time of vintage arrived, he charged them 50 %
interest and gave them nothing in return for their work in the wine-presses.75
70 Van Minnen (2008), 233. On the reaffirmation of the dominium of the state in law, see
Chouquet (2014), 218.
71 Chouquet (2014) 248–249, 75, 192–194. The censuses of the islands of Thera and Lesbos and
the census from Magnesia in Asia Minor have been dated in the reign of Valentinian and Valens, a
period of centralization, by Harper (2008), 89, 92. Gigantius, the corrupt governor of Pelusium in
the period before 432, drew a census and imposed burdensome taxation on the peasants. As a
result, the latter resorted to flight: Isidore of Pelusium, Ep. 688 (PG78:448); PLRE II, 512.
72 Ziche (2006), 134–136. Cf. Chrysostom, Comp. reg. mon. 3 (PG 47:390).
73 “You say ‘If you do not work for me in the coming year, I will not pay your wages for the work
you did in the year which has just gone.’ This is how you deprive many of their wages ... The one
who gives at interest to the needy ... whether he levies at interest or makes it into capital.”
(Shenoute, A15: Adversus Graecos: De Usura 63, 65 in “Shenoute on Usury” in Alcock 2016, 2, 4).
On non-payment of wages or payment by credit as a way to tie down a mobile labor force in the
Roman Empire and in the Third World, see Banaji (2001), 198, 200, 201, 203–205; Sarris (2004), 63.
74 Shenoute, “Not because a fox barks,” in Brakke and Crislip (2015), 204–205; López (2013), 84–
85, 90–94.
75 Hom. Matt. LXI, 3 (PG 58:591–592); Decker (2008), 76. The fact that slaves were used along free
tenants in the estates of the landowners in Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, and in the islands Thera and

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The transfer of mortgaged property to the creditors in conjunction with the

customary non-payment of wages and the obligatory indebtedness of harvesters
and of workers in the viticulture76 led to the concentration of wealth in a few
hands.77 In A.D. 525 in Egypt, in the modestly affluent village of Temseu Skordon,
the richest 30 % owned 79.7 % of the land, with more than half being held in the

hands of the top 10 %. At Aphrodito the great house of Julianus, the former

prefect, owned nearly 3/5 of the taxable land. Furthermore, according to Roger
Bagnall, these figures refer only to taxable property. If the private property of
Julianus was included, the Gini coefficient would be .863.78 Nevertheless, evi-
dence from the villages of northern Syria, Nessana, in Palestine, or Cilicia, in Asia
Minor, shows that small landownership survived and even at times thrived in late
antiquity.79 But overall, the cautious remarks of John Bintliff should be taken into
consideration: “We have drawn attention to a set of contradictory indications
characteristic of late antiquity: empty countrysides alongside busy ones, rural
Lesbos must have aggravated, in certain contexts, the working conditions of the free laborers. For
the use of slaves, see Rotman (2014), 461–462; Bagnall (1993), 127; Harper (2008), 100.
76 On the proclivity of the landlords not to pay harvesters, see Augustine, Ep. 153.23 cited in
Shaw (2013), 260, 409. A worker was beaten up by the slaves of his employer when he tried to
claim his wages in P. Oxy. 49. 3480 (A.D. 360–390), text from Bülow-Jacobsen (1982). Simeon the
Stylite was generous towards the reapers and the poor and a letter included in his hagiography
prescribes: “that we not cheat a hired servant and a laborer of his wages” (Syriac Life of Simeon
Stylites, 77, 131, text from Doran 1992, 159, 196). On costs of viticulture and indebtedness of
workers and tenants as an old problem in viticulture, see Kloppenborg (2006), 314–319; 137, 140,
306, 344; 321, 546–548. Cf. Plutarch, De Vit. Aere alien. 829A, text from Cuvigny (1981), 15;
Grammarians too did not receive payment from the wealthy; “An unpublished Berlin papyrus
contains an acknowledgement of debt issued by Dioskoros of Aphrodito in 568 to a Ioannes of
Lycopolis in payment for a course the latter gave to his son Petros:” Ruffini (2008), 160; cf.
Palladas, IX.174, text from Beckby (1958), 108.
77 On the correlation between growth, the emergence of large estates, production for the market
and exploitation of the peasantry from the fourth to the early sixth centuries, see Sarris (2006),
196–197. For the existence of “substantial peasants” who enjoyed some prosperity see Hickey
(2007), 298; he ignores the evidence from Shenoute.
78 Bagnall (2008), 182, 188–189; (2011), 47–48; the landless were excluded from the measure-
ment of the Gini coefficient: ibid. Cf. In the Roman Empire “the wealthy and the not-very-wealthy
made up 10 % of the population. Thus wealth distribution was even more skewed than in the

U. S. A. today” (Holum 2015, 937). The land distribution in Thera and Magnesia confirms the

Egyptian evidence: Harper (2008), 92, 95.

79 Decker (2008), 42–43, 66–67, 79, 237; for the importance of interregional trade, in wine and oil
in the coastal cities of Rough Cilicia and in the rural settlements and for the flourishing of the
region in the late fifth and sixth centuries, see Iacomi (2010), 26–28; for intervillage trade in
northern Syria, see de Ligt (1990), 31.

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settlements producing significant surpluses but for export and benefiting a lim-
ited class of landowners, shrunken cities with spectacular new churches.”80
The onerous taxation imposed by the state on all strata of society from the
early fourth century onwards increased the level of indebtedness.81 Private letters
and public documents from Kellis in Egypt dating from as early as the second half
of the fourth century show artisans and traders incurring debt in order to pay the
chrysargyron.82 In 410, the guilds of artisans, the fishermen, the prostitutes, and
the usurers, were allowed to pay the chrysargyron in monthly installments for
they could not pay the amount due outright.83 It was levied probably every four
years, but some cities might decide to exact it annually.84 Abuses of the autho-
rities might lead to its tripling.85 Therefore, a new type of patronage is attested
where the Christian benefactor assumed the burden of paying the cost of the
chrysargyron. Around 450 the demos of Stratonicea in Caria honored a Christian
“benefactor who three times paid the four-yearly chrysargyron on behalf of the
80 Bintliff (2012), 72.

81 Military expenses represented the bulk of the budget expenses from 300 till the age of
Justinian; see also the tables of late antique “budgets” in Treadgold (2014), 305–306, 315, 316–
318. For a more optimistic, unconvincing in my opinion, account of late antique taxation, see
Ziche (2006), 127–130.
82 Tax debt: P. Kell. Inv. P. 81; Nr, 76, text from Worp (1995), 197–199. Ten persons collected the
tax in the village of Kellis so as to be able to share the burden of collective responsibility in case
the taxpayers defaulted. Ibid. Nr. 15, 44–45.
83 CT 13.1.18 (A.D. 400). A tax that had no legitimacy: πρόφασιν δικαίαν οὐκ ἔχων, ὄνομα
δυστυχὲς τοῖς ὑπηκόοις, χρυσὸς καὶ ἄργυρος εἰς μίαν κοινὴν ἐλθόντες προσηγορίαν (Procopius of
Gaza, Op. XI [= Or. 2], 13, text from Amato 2014, 295, 16–19); social categories that suffered from
the tax in Amato (2014) 295, 19–30; 321. Timotheus of Gaza had written a drama on the chrysargyr-
on. (ibid.). Carrié states that the tax in question covered a small percentage of the imperial budget
and that our sources are “melodramatic.” He ignores the epigraphic and papyrological evidence I
cite. It is uncertain whether it was levied every four or five years, probably the former: Carrié
(2014), 152, 149, 146, 150. The chrysargyron affected 60% of the urban population: Bagnall (1993),
154, n. 32.
84 CT 13.1.20 (A.D. 410). Generally, for the difficulty of paying the whole amount of taxes, without
installments, see Libanius Or. 33.19; Norman (1977), 212, 4–6; cf. Themistius, Or. 8, 118c-d, text
from Downey (1965), 178, 6–10.
85 In fifth-century Antioch a city councillor tripled the tax burden on leather workers who used
red dye. Three hundred of them went to Simeon the Stylite to implore him to convince the civic
magistrate to tax them according to the customary rate: text from Doran (1992), 135–136. The
intervention of the city magistrates was deemed an abuse of their power, given that the corpora
and the bankers were responsible for the allotment of the tax. For abuses of power, see Carrié
(2014), 141, CT 13.1.17, analyzed in 154–155. To this ought to be added the customary abuses of
soldiers: see Shenoute for Egypt and Life of Rabbula for Edessa: López (2013), 39; Doran (2006),
88.

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working poor from his own resources.”86 Rabbula, when he was making his will
shortly before he died, “tore up the deeds by which he had lent a great deal of
gold to the craftsmen” presumably before he became Bishop of Edessa.87 Anasta-
sius abolished the chrysargyron in 498 to replace it with a more onerous tax.88
Debt bondage increased.89 Parents sold their children, or themselves, on
account of debts they owed to the state and/or to their creditors.90 Paramone
contracts from the early Empire show that the debtor might serve the creditor from
several months to ten years, till the interest, and more rarely also the capital
owed, was repaid.91 In late antiquity the borrower pledged his children or other
relatives to the creditor for an indefinite time on condition that they “perform all
servile offices and requirements ... unremittingly, willingly and submissively.”92
In Egypt in the textile industry there was a rise in paramone contracts for
unlimited time as a result of insolvency.93 In Pontus in Asia Minor slaves were
86 BE2009 Nr. 626; text from Jones (2009), 150–151. A law of 386 states: “If any very powerful
man should suppose that any tradesman should be defended, contrary to the advantage of our
fisc from paying the gold due ...” (CT 13.1.15).
87 Doran (2006), 103.
88 Evagrius, HE 3.42, text from Bidez (2011), 524; Laniado (2002), 43–46; Zuckerman (2004), 224–
225.
89 Grey (2011), 486; Allen and Neil (2013), 153.
90 Tax debts and sale of children: probably to pay the debt of their father with their work: Historia
Monachorum in Aegypto 14.6; Vuolanto (2003), 192; Basil of Caesarea, Hom. Ps. XIV, 4 (PG 29:277);
Libanius, Contra Florentium 22–23, in Casella (2010), 122; debt to the creditor and sale of children:
Severus of Antioch, Hom. 13, 20, text from Brière (1976), 395; children pawned by their parents and
enslaved by creditors: legal evidence from the third century in Veyne and Ramin (1981), 485; and
in many places of the Byzantine Empire in Nov. 134.7 (A.D. 556); Fikhhman (2006), 333; Kreuzsaler
(2014), 272. In the fourth century the wine merchant Pamonthios contracted a loan to pay his
taxes. He sold everything to pay back the loan but eventually “the creditor took possession of his
children who had probably served as a pledge:” Laes (2008) 269, with reference to P. Lond. VI
1915 (c. 340). Laes minimizes the novelty of such phenomena: ibid., 267. Fictitious story showing
that borrowing, extreme poverty and self-sale as a slave were taken for granted: Palladios, Lausiac
History, 37, 6–8 cited in Delmaire (1999), 181.
91 Yiftach-Firanko (2010), 279–280.
92 P. Coll. Youtie II 92 (Antinoopolis A.D. 569) where a seller of salted fish “mortgaged” her
fifteen-year old sister to her creditor: Kreuzsaler (2014), 271–272. Cf. In Africa parents sold their
children as indentured laborers for twenty-five years: Augustine, Ep. 10 to Alypius in Italy (Nuova
Biblioteca Agostiniana, 23A, 80) cited by Allen and Neil (2013), 152. On the terms of paramone
contracts in late antiquity, see P. Cair.Masp. 67023 (A.D. 529); SB IV. 7358 in Vuolanto (2003), 195,
n. 81. On the fuzzy boundaries between wage work done by a person leased, often a child, and
slavery, see Vuolanto (2003), 187–192, Laes (2008), 268; Allen and Neil (2013), 152.
93 Wipszycka (1965), 94.

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used in the weaving establishments.94 This, of course did not imply that wage
labor or tenancy ceased to be the predominant forms of the organization of
production, yet as already stated, not infrequently the conditions applied to those
contracts did not differ much from slavery.95 In 569 in Antinoopolis a villager
signed a wage contract where he agreed to serve a lawyer as a slave for four
years.96
The wealthy lenders were interested in quick profits and made every effort to
double their capital.97 In late antique Egypt city-dwellers advanced short-term,
six month loans of money to villagers but charged interest in kind, in wheat or
legumes, which corresponded to a yearly interest of 25 %, that is more than

double the legal annual interest of 12 %.98 Borrowers resorted to the “opportu-

nistic neighbor,”99 to members of the imperial bureaucracy, (especially if they

belonged to the same social milieu)100 and, less often, to professional bank-
94 Asterius of Amasea 3.13.4; Harper (2011), 186, 134. Certainly, apart from debt bondage,
physical reproduction was a source of slaves.
95 “Les maîtres étaient portés à confondre domestique et esclave et à traiter comme leurs
esclaves tous ceux qui travaillaient pour eux” (Veyne and Ramin 1981, 482 with reference to Cod.
Just. VII, 18, 16.).
96 P. Strasb. I. 40.
97 Chrysostom, Hom. 2Cor. XVI, 4 (PG 61:516). ὁ σφόδρα ἀναίσχυντος δανειστὴς κάμνει, ἵνα
διπλασιάσῃ τὸ κέφαλαιον (Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Usur. 199, 20–21); Barnish (1985), 14. Creditors
ignored the law of Justinian which allowed the debt to be dissolved when the borrower had made
payments to the creditor equal double the amount of the principal, even in different time periods,
and tried to collect from the grandsons of two decurions twice the original capital owed to them,
as if no interest had been paid, in Novella 121. Neverthless, not infrequently the legal 12 % was

observed: Hayashi (1998), 343. Chrysostom mentions in passing: μὴ λάβῃς τόκον ἑκατοστιαῖον
(Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. LVI, 5 (PG 58:556). And after the reform of Justinian the legal 6 %: see

P. Ness. III.46 (A.D. 605), text from Kraemer (1958), 136–137.

98 Blouin (2010), 102–104. Loans in kind which bore a 50 % interest quite common in the papyri

collected by Hayashi (1998), 342; also Hieronymus, Ezekiel. 6,18 (cited ibid., 340). The servant of
an aristocrat contracted from another servant a small loan at an exorbitant rate of interest, 45 % a

year in 579: P. Oxy. 5124 with the comments of Benaissa (2011), 142–146.
99 Llewellyn Ihsen (2011), 144. As a rule, lenders tended to own substantial amounts of land:
Bagnall (1993), 74.
100 In 492 Flavius Julianus, clarissimus tribunus, notarius sacri palatii and a scholasticus who was
advocate in the court of the Augustal prefect of Egypt, jointly borrowed a large amount of money
from someone who was a scholasticus and advocate in the same court at 6 %. P. Oxy. LXIII, 4394:

Rea (1996), 115–129. Paul, consul in 512, borrowed money from Zenodotos to buy his office. Paul
could not pay back Zenodotos, who was also a patrician. Emperor Anastasius gave to Paul the
amount he had borrowed from Zenodotos and an additional amount of money which would allow
him to recover his former social status: John Lydus, Magistr. III.48.1–5, text from Dubuisson and
Schamp (2006), 102–103; with the comments of the editors in 109–112.

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ers.101 These, according to Chrysostom, were involved in an exploitative rela-

tionship with their clients because “availing themselves of the funds of others
they acquired great wealth” by lending to third parties the money deposited.102
Apart from this, they were engaged in money-changing activities and hence
were employed in tax-collection on behalf of the state103 and assumed responsi-
bility for the treasury in the municipal administration by financing the specta-
cles and supervising public works.104 Because of their fraudulent “weighing
of scales,” their charging “a usurious rate of interest and an exorbitance of
interest on pawned objects” and their “bartering and exchanging of gold,”105
they attracted the wrath of their contemporaries. It is revealing that in the fifth
century a graffito at the theatre of Aphrodisias illustrated the acclamation for
Theodotos protaurarios (moneychanger), nicknamed Κολότρων, after the word
κόλυτρον by depicting his body as a money bag and having coins for testi-
cles.106 Naturally, in 567 the confiscation by Empress Sophia of the agreements
and pledges of debt to the argyropratai and semadarioi, and their restoration to
the debtors was accounted “a praiseworthy act by the whole city.”107
101 Bagnall (1993), 74; Carrié (1999), 80. Bankers might go bankrupt, on account of the
insolvency of their clients, because themselves used the funds at their disposal to buy offices or
lent money to those who purchased dignities: about this see Barnish (1985), 33, 20; Prokopios,
Secret History, 21.13; Nov. 136.2 and Nov. 8. On the affluence of some bankers, see Carrié (1999)
77.
102 Καὶ γὰρ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν τραπεζιτῶν τῶν ἐκείνων ὁρῶμεν τοὺς μὲν καταβάλλοντας χρήματα, τοὺς
δὲ λαμβάνοντας εὐθέως, καὶ ἀπιόντας, καὶ τοῦτο διὰ πάσης ἡμέρας γινόμενον ἴδοι τις ἄν ... διὰ τῶν
ἀλλοτρίων πολλῆν ἑαυτοῖς συλλέγουσι τὴν εὐπορίαν. (Chrysostom, Hom. Princ. Act. IV, 2, PG
51:99; Bogaert 1973, 258). Unsealed deposits bore interest to the depositor and were lent by the
bank that held them (depositum irregulare). For the early Empire, see Collins and Walsh (2014),
184–185, 191.
103 Nearly a third of the corpus of papyri featuring zygostatai is related in some way to taxation:
Borek (2015), 39; Zuckerman (2004), 103–104.
104 Zuckerman (2000), 77–78.
105 τοῦ χρυσοκαταλλακτικοῦ καὶ σημαδαρικοῦ πόρου μετερχομένους ... ἐγνωκὼς τὴν
αἰσχροκέρδειαν καὶ τὴν τῶν ζυγῶν βαρυσταθμίαν καὶ τὴν τῶν τόκων ἀπληστίαν καὶ τὴν τῶν
ἐνεχύρων ἀδιάκριτον πολυτοκίαν. (Miracles of St. Artemios, 38, text from Crisafulli 1997, 198). For
the huge profits made by the Alexandrian bankers on currency transactions see Banaji (2001),
220.
106 The graffito illustrated the acclamation “νικᾷ ἡ τύχη Θεοδότου προταυραρίου τοῦ καὶ
Κολότρονος.” For the grammar of sobriquet formation and the meaning of κόλυθρος, denoting,
according to Zuckerman, money bag in the singular and testicles in the plural, according to the
Brill dictionary, see Zuckerman (2000), 73–75. Cf. a second/third statuette from Egypt depicts a
dog-headed banker in front of the trapeza where he exchanged coins: Nachtergael (1990), 315–32.
107 Theophanes, Chronographia, I. 242, 21–26; Hendy (1985), 243.

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Basil of Caesarea writes that “the money-lender on receiving something is

further provoked. He does not stop railing, but demands more ... he stands before
your house and knocks at the door ... he renders life insupportable for you.”108 In
case one thinks that this is moralistic rhetoric, it would be advisable to turn to an
incident addressed in a Novella of Justinian. In 537 a creditor, with a retinue of
slaves and officials, had besieged a borrower at his deathbed, and exerting
inordinate pressure on him had precipitated his end and then had proceeded with
the confiscation of his property and was even intent on prohibiting his funeral
from taking place to oblige his family to pay his debts. As a result Emperor
Justinian decreed that no one should place seals on the property of a borrower
who was ill without the presence of a magistrate. Though similar rulings had been
promulgated before, the Emperor felt obliged to issue a law of general application
so as to prohibit the profanation of the dead by any one of his creditors, in all the
provinces of the Empire.109
Even members of the high classes risked losing some of their property when
they entered the vicious circle of borrowing. In 578 Christodote, whose family
belonged to the office-holding elite of Thebaid, had incurred so many debts that
she was daily harassed by her creditors, who threatened that they would con-
fiscate her landed property in the province of Arkadia. Wishing to free herself
from her creditors and fearing she would lose face in the local society of
Oxyrhynchus she sought to recover the money owed to her by her brother
Kometos. Kometos ordered the Alexandrian banker Eustathius, who held the title
of count, to repay his sister the considerable amount of money he owed her on his
behalf. But Eustathius, for reasons unknown to us, did not execute the order.
Eventually, Cristodote lost some of her property but remained wealthy, not least
on account of her connections.110
108 Basil of Caesarea, Hom. Ps. XIV, 2 (PG 29:269–272); cf. οἱ δὲ χρηστοὶ τοκογλύφοι ... ἕλκουσι
τοὺς κληρονόμους τάχα τὴν σχοῖνον μόνην τοῦ βρόχου κληρονομήσαντας (Gregory of Nyssa,
Contra Usur. 203, 18–21). Often men with influence were recruited to enforce the terms of the
contract: “if written acknowledgments of debt of any kind should be transferred to powerful
persons, the creditors shall be penalized by the loss of the debt. For it appears to be plain greed on
the part of creditors when they buy other men as the enforcers of their own right of action” (CT
2.13.1, A.D. 422).
109 Nov. 60.1. (A.D. 537); cf. 115.5.1 Cf. Ambrose, De Tobia 10, 36 and other sources cited in
Navarra (2010), 852–875. “Whenever money is sued for on any contract whatsoever, the necessity
of sequestration shall be in abeyance. For first it is necessary for the debtor to be convicted and so
become subject to payment” (CT 2.28.1, A.D. 422).
110 Ὅτι πολλοῖς χρέεσιν προσπαλαίω καὶ καθ’ἑκάστην ὥραν ἐνοχλοῦμαι παρὰ τῶν δανειστῶν,
τοῦτο πᾶσιν δῆλον καθέστηκεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡ ὑπολειφθεῖσά μοι ἀκίνητος οὐσία κατὰ τὴν Ἀρκάδων
μέλλει ἐκ περιστάσεως παραδοθῆναι τοῖς δανισταῖς ... (PSI 76,6 and generally ibid. 1–10, text from

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As far as we can tell, there was strict enforcement of the terms of the contract
by the lender whatever the status of the borrower might have been. Relatives or
work associates were not, necessarily, treated more favorably. In early sixth-
century Oxyrhynchus a purple dyer recorded the way he would repay his brother
the substantial amount of money he had borrowed from him.111 While in the city
of Petra, in Jordan the debts of the in-laws were recorded in the most elaborate
detail.112 The threat, or the actual use, of violence was the weapon the lender
brandished to compel the borrower to comply with the terms of the contract. In
the second half of the fourth century, a carpenter, threatened his borrower,
probably a work associate, that he would send soldiers to force him to meet his
obligations towards him, if he did not return to another person the 3,000 talents
he owed him.113 Chrysostom describes the working poor abusing and beating
persons who owed them money in the marketplace.114
Certainly, in a business parternship a situation of mutual indebtedness
among fellow artisans at successive periods of time was of benefit to all parties
involved. A spirit of camaraderie is evident in the following contract of partnership
signed between carpenters, between a son-in-law and the family of his wife, in the
city of Antinoopolis in 568 which stipulated the sharing of the profits, “after
having deducted in full all the former debts” between them as well as the future
losses.
“And should we wish to abandon this joint-labor-partnership between us we shall immedi-

ately admit the loans of the preceding time, which came into existence between us because
of the joint undertakings, in the same half-parts, that is equal shares, for the period of time
Keenan 1979, 193–194, 203–204; Ruffini 2008, 75–80). For the use of letters of credit (ἐπιθήκη), i.e.

“the written order for the transfer of deposited money from one location to another” in the fifth-
century Egypt, see Concannon (2010), 81–83.
111 P. Oxy. LXXVII 5122 (A.D. 552), text from Benaissa (2011), 134.
112 Papyrus Petra Thomas and Francesca Bennett (A.D. 537) with the comments of the editors in
Frösen (2002), 24. Cf. Papyrus Petra Selz Foundation I (c. 582–592) in Arjava (2007), 103–125. In
seventh- and eighth-century Egypt loans between relatives were quite common. When the
borrowers could not repay the debt the securities were transferred to the lender. With reference to
CPR IV 29, see Papaconstantinou (2010), 633, 636.
113 The carpenter was both lender and borrower at the same time. For he had borrowed 3,000
talents from the man he sent to collect the amount due to him: P. Kellis inv. P. 79.1, Nr. 70, text
from Worp (1995), 183–184.
114 Εἴπω δὲ καὶ πρὸς ὑμᾶς τοὺς ἀσχημονοῦντας δημοσίᾳ, πρὸς τὸν ἐπηρεάζοντα καὶ ἀδικοῦντα.
Πληγὰς ἐντείνεις καὶ λακτίζεις καὶ δάκνεις; ... εἰ γὰρ χειροτέχνης εἶ, ἀλλὰ Χριστιανός ... Τί τοίνυν
ἀπαιτεῖς μετὰ βίας; ... χάριν ἔχωμεν τοῖς ὀφείλουσιν ἡμῖν. (Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. XV, 11, PG
57:237–238).

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in which we have led one labor-community and harmonious joint-life. And it shall not be
allowed to neither of us to bring any type of suit because of these matters ...”115
It is also true that in times of need some among the working poor resorted to the
eranos of friends, neighbors and associations.116 Yet it remains a moot point
whether the loans contracted among friends were interest free.117 It is also certain
that the poorest were excluded from such networks of support, as well as from
every circuit of credit. For, as Chrysostom reminds us
“the one who lends requires mortgage, pledges or someone to guarantee for the borrower
and on account of these three securities entrusts to the borrower his money. The destitute is
bereft of all this: he has nothing to put on mortgage for he owns nothing nor can he pledge
anything for he has been left bare of every possession; nor can he provide a guarantor for
nobody trusts him on account of his indigence.”118
To the indigent, often homeless and in need of food and clothing, we now turn to
see by what means the Church provided for them.119
III Credit, charity and the church

In one of the homilies Severus delivered in the early sixth century in Antioch, he
urged the wealthy to:
“Succor the Church that suffers hardship under the burden of debt, and which cannot
nourish all the needy nor clothe those who are nude. But certain men are not ashamed,
115 P. Cairo Masp. II 67158, Greek text from Urbanik (2012), 276, 18–277, 24; trans. in ibid. 278–
279. Cf. P. Strasb. 4.287 (c. A.D. 500) where five members of tow-workers association advanced a
loan to a fellow member: cited in Broekaert and Zuiderhoek (2015), 152.
116 Ποιησώμεθα φρατρίας καὶ συμμορίας, καὶ ὅπερ ἐπὶ τῶν συμποσίων οἱ πένητες ποιοῦσιν,
ἐπειδὰν αὐτῶν ἕκαστος ἐστιάτωρ ὁλόκληρος γενέσθαι μὴ δύνηται, συνελθόντες ἅπαντες ἐξ
ἐράνου τὴν εὐωχίαν εἰσφέρουσι ... (Chrysostom, Ad. Pop. Antioch. XI, 5, PG 49:126); ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐν
ταῖς τῶν ἐράνων συνεισφοραῖς τὰ παρ’ ἑκάστου καταβληθέντα κοινὰ τῶν εἰσενεγκάντων γίνεται
(Basil of Caesarea, Hom. Quadr. Mart. XIX, 2, PG 31:509).
117 Ogerau (2014), 343, n. 183.
118 ἀπαιτεῖ γὰρ ὁ δανείζων ἢ ὑποθήκην ἢ ἐνέχυρα ἢ τὸν ἀντιφωνοῦντα καὶ διὰ τῶν τριῶν τούτων
άσφαλειῶν ἐμπιστεύει τὰ ἑαυτοῦ χρήματα· ... πάντων τούτων ἔρημος ὁ πτωχὸς·οὐχ ὑποθήκην
ἔχων·οὐ κέκτηται γὰρ οὐδέν· οὐκ ἐνέχυρα φέρων·γεγύμνωται γὰρ·οὐ τὸν ἀντιφωνοῦντα παρέχων·
ἀπιστεῖται γὰρ διὰ τὴν ἀπορίαν. (Chrysostom, Paenit. VII, 7, (PG 49:333).
119 As Mayer (2006), 479 states, tradespeople were unlikely to be homeless for they could work
their way back out of debt even if they had been forced to take out a loan in order to avoid selling
their tools. The latter attested in Chrysostom, Laz. III, 2 (PG 48:993).

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through it [i.e. the Church], to demand onerous interests from the Messiah. They do this

some days after we have departed because they see that the poor, having nothing to assuage
their needs, cried and complained lest, on account of our prolonged journey, they did not
receive the ten obols, as was customary.”120
The church was in urgent need for ready cash, since the poor, who hadn’t received
their customary ten obols for quite a long period, claimed in a vociferous way their
presumed right to assistance. The lenders exploiting the situation demanded
suddenly usurious rates for their loans. For that reason, instead of helping
the destitute directly, they claimed that the treasury of the Church had the where-
withal to assist them and would often bring one of them to the bishop ordering
him to “give him sustenance, inscribe him to the register of widows or of the old.”121
Often the wealthy would rather own silver chamber-pots or have themselves
carried to the public baths on silver thrones than donate even used clothes to the
church.122 It is indicative that a pious Christian who was in charge of one of the
social services of the church of Antioch “used to buy linen undergarments which
came from Egypt and from this supply he would provide garments for those in
need.”123 Chrysostom complained that landowners would rather pay for baths and
markets than donate money to build churches in their estates.124 Affluent peasants
made gifts that made their wealth visible, like the large silver-revetted cross in the
“Antioch Treasure” or the silver revetments in the rural chuches at Kaper Koraon,
in Syria, and at Sion in sixth-century Lycia.125 The clergy themselves, according to
Isidore of Pelusium showed their marked preference for gifts in gold and silver.126
Though these treasures might be used for charitable purposes,127 they could also
be used as pawns for loans. Given that the boundaries between the private
property of the clergy and the property of a monastery or a church were indeter-
minate,128 in 381 a deacon in the village church of Heracleopolis pawned a silver
120 Hom. 62, text from Brière (1982) 284, 9–15; 285, 5.
121 Severus of Antioch, Hom. 81, text from Brière (1927), 369.
122 τὰ ἀποπατήματα οὕτω τιμᾶς, ὥστε ἀργύρῳ ὑποδέχεσθαι; (Chrysostom, Hom. Col. VII, 5, PG
62:349); Severus of Antioch, Hom. 100, text from Guidi (1988), 246–247, idem. Hom. 81, Brière
(1927), 368.
123 John Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, 230 [Nissen 12]; trans. Wortley (1992), 212.
124 Καὶ ἀγορὰς καὶ βαλανεῖα ποιοῦσιν οἱ πολλοὶ, ἐκκλησίας δὲ οὐχί (Chrysostom, Hom. Act. XVIII,
4, PG 60:147). Similar reluctance in the time of Justinian: Nov. 131, 7 (A.D. 545); Thomas (1987),
29–30.
125 Mango (1993), 131–134.
126 Evieux (1995), 196.
127 Sotinel (2006), 114.
128 The personal testament of Apa Abraham, abbot of the monastery of St. Phoibamon, ad-
dressed to the priest Victor, his successor is indicative. (P. Lond. I 77, c.600). “γραμματείοις, gold

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cup in order to obtain a loan.129 As to the landed wealth of the ecclesiastical

establishments, it was definitely less significant than previously assumed.130
Therefore to finance its charity and cover its expenses (taxes and salaries of its
personnel) the church of Antioch had to rely on the usurious loans of the elite.
Chrysostom accused the wealthy of selling philanthropy by advancing loans
at 12 % rate of interest.131 It is not impossible that the loans advanced were from

the interest of the capital deposited in a bank. The depositum irregulare would be
lent to third parties so that from the interest its owner might assist the poor.132 In
our case, the assistance was exceptionally profitable. For the wealthy of Antioch
forwarded loans to a church that was totally dependent on them as it had gone
bankrupt. As Severus of Antioch attested, the “church is truly indigent and in
want; and it is so entirely chafed and made dependent upon a burden of interest-
payments that it dare not scarcely even lift up its head, but loans upon loans are
added to it, and interest upon interest accounted to it.”133
and silver, buildings, movable, immovable and animate property” were among the things of the
monastery that he bequeathed to his successor: Thomas (1987), 61–62.
129 P. Rain. Cent. 86 (SPP XX 103), mentioned by Bagnall (1993), 75, n. 184.
130 At Aphrodito, even in the sixth century the churches, in contrast to the monasteries which
owned 1/3 of the land, owned just 6.3 % of the land. While in 525/6 in the large village of Temseu

Skordon, the church paid 15.1 % of the taxes on village property: Zuckerman (2004), 227, 231;

Bagnall (2008), 184. However, the principal episcopal church of Hermopolis was a large land-
owner: Bagnall (2011), 54. The fiscal assessment of the church in Oxyrhynchus was 38 % of that of

the Apions: Hickey (2007), 296–297. The Apion family gave only 1 % of the harvest to the Church

of Oxyrhynchus: Sotinel (2006), 108; Thomas (1987), 84. Also in the West “most prosperous
church lay in the shadow of massive complexities of lay wealth.” Brown (2012), 493. Small
donations were of some importance: the inhabitants, probably, of the village Djeme donated a
plot of land to the monastery of Phoibammon: Godlewski (1986), 81. “In northwestern Syria
monasteries were built on village land ... by villagers:” Ashkenazi (2014), 751.
131 Διὰ γὰρ τοῦτο χρήματα ἔχεις, ἵνα λύσῃς πενίαν, οὐχ ἵνα πραγματεύσῃ πενίαν... μὴ λάβῃς
τόκον ἑκατοστιαῖον ... (Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. 56, 5, PG 58:556). λαβὼν τὸν τόκον, πένητι δίδωμι,
φησίν. (ibid. 56, 7, PG 58:557). Καὶ γὰρ πολλοὺς εἰς τοῦτο οἶδα θηριωδίας ἐλθόντας, ὡς δι’ὄκνον
μικρὸν λιμώττοντας περιορᾶν, καὶ ταῦτα λέγοντας τὰ ῥήματα·οὐ πάρεστιν οἰκέτης ἐμοὶ νῦν,
πόρρω τῆς οἰκίας ἐσμέν, τραπεζίτης οὐδείς ἐστί μοι γνώριμος. (ibid. 25, 5, PG 57:412).
132 On loans to the church made via the bank where one had deposited one’s money see
Augustine, Letter 7 with the comments of Carrié (2003), 273. Depositum irregulare is also used in
this case: in 545 the monastery of Apa Hierax that had lent Diogenes a considerable amount of
money wished to claim from Fl. Strategius, a member of the Apions, the land Diogenes had
mortgaged to them and later to Strategios. The latter deposited only a sum of the money owed
with the Oxyrhynchite zygostates so that from the loans advanced at a profit he would pay the
monastery till he found a plot of land: Urbanik (2009), 232.
133 Letter to Timostratus, The Sixth Book of the Selected Letters, trans. Allen and Hayward (2004),
71.

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The church did not prohibit lending at interest to laymen simply because it
relied on credit to finance its charitable projects, to a considerable extent. Not
only the wealthy but the poor as well borrowed in order to give alms to the
church. Those who appeared pious but were hard-pressed wouldn’t have been
able to assist the church had they not contracted a loan. In the sixth-century a
pious layman asked John of Gaza: “If someone is asked to fulfill the command-
ment of charity although destitute should he borrow in order to give?”134 Further-
more, in the fifth century, the monk Hypatius borrowed money from friends to
buy grain and vegetables at a low price so as to distribute these for free to the poor
during a famine.135 In addition to that, the lower classes would have been unable
to make ends meet without borrowing. It is indicative that the poor borrowers of
the congregation of the Nestorian bishops of Mesopotamia asked them not to
prohibit usury for they could not live without taking loans. As a result the leaders
of the church did not condemn those who lent money at a moderate rate of
interest.136 Similarly, in the mid-fifth century Simeon the Stylite did not prohibit
usury, but simply insisted on halving the rate of interest, that is to make it 6 %
instead of the official 12 %.137 This more moderate stance did not ostracize the

radical debt abolitionist position, but simply coexisted with it. In the late fifth
century the rich were so stung by the exhortations of Alexander the Sleepless that
“they brought before him the records they had kept against their debtors and
burned them up.”138
As to the loans issued for commercial purposes, they increased the income of
the church, and therefore seem to have been perfectly acceptable, even if ideally
they ought to have been interest free. In the early seventh century John the
Almsgiver, the Patriarch of Alexandria lent 20 pounds of gold to a merchant who
made trips to Gaul in order to purchase a cargo. To the dismay of the oikonomoi of
the church, he asked the Patriarch again for more money. The stewards of the
church behaved like a typical creditor on seeing he would not get his money back:
they were ready to imprison the shipper and confiscate his property for he had not
134 Ἐὰν τις αἰτῆται ἐντολήν δοῦναι καὶ οὐκ ἔχῃ, ἇρα ὀφείλει δανείζεσθαι ἵνα παράσχῃ; (Barsanu-
phius and John of Gaza, Ep. 620, text from Neyt and Noah 2002, 42; Harper 2005, 90).
135 Callinicus, Life of Hypatius, 31.4–6, text from Bartelink (1971), 204–206. A disciple of
Pachomius did the same, putting the monastery in debt, though it had no means of paying back
the loan. Paralipomena, 21–22, Veilleux (1980–1982), vol. 2, 44–46, cited by López (2013), 54.
136 Synodicon Orientale, canon 15, text from Chabot (2002), 412.
137 “He gave orders that the usury that might be collected on everything might be halved ...
“Concerning usury that half a percent be collected on both old and new debts [= 6 % per year]”

(Syriac Life of Simeon, 77 in Doran 1992, 159, 196).

138 τά δικαιώματα αὐτῶν τὰ κατὰ τῶν χρεοφειλετῶν φέρειν ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ καὶ κατακαίειν. (Life
of Alexander the Sleepless, 33, text from de Stoop 1980, 684, 4–6, trans. Caner 2002, 269).

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honored his obligations.139 About the same period, Spyridon, Bishop of Tri-
mithonte in Cyprus, gave the savings that covered the expenses of his church, as
well as his personal needs, to a shipmaster who wanted to sell his cargo,
purportedly, to support his family.140 It is revealing of the involvement of the
church in maritime trade that most Pachomian monasteries assigned to the office
of the διακονητής responsibilities for the economic transactions of the monastery,
for instance representing them in its office in Constantinople in its dealings with
the state as well as with lay shipmasters.141 As early as c. 336–348 “sailors of the
church” transported money and in c. 352–359 the bishop of Oxyrhynchus, Theo-
dore “apparently owned his own ship” while in c. 390 we learn of a “steersman of
the ship of the catholic church of the same Alexandria.”142
Were the lending practices of the church in congruence with the charitable
morality that it preached? The following episode from Pratum Spirituale is char-
acteristic of the way the heads of the wealthy metropolitan churches handled
ecclesiastical property: a scion of a noble family of Alexandria lost the consider-
able property he had inherited from his parents in a shipwreck. Apollinarios, the
Patriarch of Alexandria, “who had known his parents and how well-off they had
been ... wanted to do something practical to help” the destitute young man. So he
asked the Chancellor of the Church to forge a document which would prove that
the father of the young man had lent to the church of Alexandria 50 pounds of
gold and to make an order of repayment of the money due to the creditor. When
139 Leontius of Neapolis, Life of John the Almsgiver, 385, 6–10; Hollerich (1982), 198. The church
of Alexandria shared in the profits of the business ventures of its fleet. In the early seventh
century, it owned a fleet of at least thirteen ships whose cargo amounted to 3,400 gold pounds, all
lost in a shipwreck. Leontius of Neapolis, Life of John the Almsgiver, 380, 1–12; Wipszycka (2002),
79.
140 Theodore of Paphos, Life of S. Spyridon of Trimithonte, 92,6–10; after each trip, the ship-
master returned the gold to the bishop till once he did not return the borrowed money for he
wanted to gain more money from his business (ibid. 92,7–95,2); Merianos (2011), 202–203.
Correctly Merianos at p. 194 remarks that the anti-usury arguments of the Church Fathers were
targeted mainly on non productive loans. In the mid-fourth century Firmus of Caesarea intervened
to convince a bishop to defend in an ecclesiastical court the rights of a creditor who had been
wronged by ungrateful borrowers. Certainly this curious case must refer to lending for productive
or commerical purposes. Firmus of Caesarea, Ep. 23, text from Calvet-Sebaste (1989).
141 Fournet and Gascou (2002), 32–33. Further, around 557, the Pachomian Monastery of
Metanoia transported on its fleet the annona civilis, that is the grain which was destined for
Constantinople and Alexandria, and received for that the tax levied on the freight: ibid. 25–26, 31;
for other examples which show the involvement of Pachomian monasteries in commercial
transactions see ibid. 42.
142 P. Hamb. IV 267; P. Oxy. XXXIV 2729; P. Münch. III.99.8 in Blumell and Wayman (2015),
430–432, 543–549.

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the young man was shown the letter of credit he went to the Patriarch and asked
whether he would like him to reduce the capital the church owed to his father.
Apollinarios said he would like him to forego only the interest and he handed him
over the 50 pounds of gold. The whole affair was kept secret.143
Treating ecclesiastical property as if it were his own, the Patriarch harmed the
church finances in order to show class solidarity towards the son of an eminent
family of Alexandria. Nepotism could be inspired by much meaner motives. In
Egypt in 412 Eusebius, Bishop of Pelusium wrote in the book of accounts of his
diocese that the church owed money to the oikonomos of the church Martinianos.
The bishop shared the stolen gold with Martinianos while the latter tried to buy
the bishopric of Alexandria, with the money falsely credited to him.144
Moreover, factional struggles led to a tremendous squandering of resources.
Severus of Antioch had tried to win supporters to his cause by making extra-
canonical ordinations of chorepiscopi and paramonarii in dioceses other than his
own and “preyed upon the accumulated wealth of the church of Antioch spend-
ing it so recklessly that it led the state of the ecclesiastical finances to the point
where no remedy could be applied to them.”145
Finally it seems that some establishments ran into trouble because of the
incompetence of their personnel. Thus, in the sixth century the Apa Apollos
Monastery of Pharaou resorted to a money lender owing to the monks’ sloth and
bad management of the monastery’s property. Apollo, the founder of the monas-
tery, while still a monk was bent on building the landed endowment and as a
result the lay curator he had appointed might have been very exacting to monks
who did not exhibit the work ethic he would have wished.146
143 John Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, 193 in PG 87 (3). 3072–3076; trans. Wortley (1992), 166–168.
The Patriach of Alexandria suppored a wealthy landowner who could not pay his taxes and gave
money to a rich man whose house had been robbed by thieves. Leontius of Neapolis, Life of John
the Almsgiver, 381, 6–15; 355, 1–15. As Wipszycka (2002), 79–80 has remarked, Leontius was
equally willing to help the wealthy and the refugees. The former probably because he wanted to
recruit supporters in his battle against heretics. Cyril of Alexandria lent a significant amount of
gold to the comes Ammonius which he also took from the resources of his church (ibid. 77).
144 Isidore of Pelusium, Ep. 127 in (PG 78:565–572); Evieux (1995), 218, 156–157; cf. for corruption
in the West, see Brown (2012), 458, 495, 475, 491, 496.
145 Epiphanius of Tyr, Epistle in the Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 536, text from
Kugener (1981), 347, 1-5–348, 2–5. The bishops’ priority, following the decision of the deposing of
a particular bishop, was securing the contents of the episcopal treasury; examples in Milewski
(2006), 105–116; Severus’ proselytizing tactics were fairly typical and contributed to the bank-
ruptcy of the church of Antioch: Nov. 3.1 (A.D. 535); Thomas (1986), 50; Alpi (2009), 85–87, 101–
102, 107, 237–238.
146 S.R. 3733.41, text and comments in McCoull (2011), 56–57, 25.

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According to the perspicacious observations of Shenoute on the civil and

ecclesiastical administration of his times, corruption was a structural feature of
the Christian polity:
“Others now, burning in the desires of their constantly power-hungry hearts, are willing to
give everything that they have until they receive the title of God’s offices ... Perhaps the
purchasers think, ‘When we acquire a position of authority, we will get in return much more
from others,’ as they too teach people to sell an honored title to those willing to buy it from
them for gold, just like those who pay in order to get a governorship so that they can commit
abuse, hoping to recoup what they paid, many times over, from many people.”147
Power was seen as a profitable investment. The purchaser of an office used every
means to recover the expenses incurred by the practice of suffragium.148 On
account of this, in the writings of the Greek theologians, greed, simony and usury
were viewed as interrelated evils. Already around the mid third century Origen
complained that:
“Owing to the luxurious way of life and the illicit gains [i.e. usury, simony] made by ... the

leaders of the people, ... the church has been transformed into a den of thieves. Deacons
mismanaged the church funds, always laid their hands on them, and administering these in
a dishonest way, they accumulated the established [ecclesiastical] wealth and money in
order to enrich themselves from the alms given for the poor. These were the money-changers
whose tables Jesus overturned. And the bishops and presbyters ... are those who are selling
the doves, whose cathedrae Jesus overturned.”149
Around A.D. 390, Gregory of Nyssa connected usury with the sin of greed and the
business-like mentality rampant among the ranks of the church:
“this kind of infirmity has flourished in the churches, and no-one is concerned whether any
of those being advanced to the clergy are tainted with this kind of idolatry. Such cases have
been passed over by our Fathers ... Nevertheless in the divine Scripture both usury (Lev
25:37) and financial oppression (Ps 72:14) are among the things forbidden, and drawing off
147 Shenoute, A26 in the translation of Brakke and Crislip (2015), 226–227. Self-aggrandizement
of bishops was a regular problem in Egypt: Bagnall (1993), 292.
148 Suffragium institutionalized by A.D. 362: CT 2.29.1; MacMullen (1988), 150–151. Reflections
on the ecclesiastical polity, ibid. 165–167; Dockter (2013), 82–95, 130–140. On Justinian’s effort to
regulate consecration fees in Novella 123 (A.D. 546) and the routinization of corruption in the sixth
century, see Hübner (2010), 175–176.
149 Origen, Comm. in Mt. 21,12–13, text from Klostermann (1935), 547, 27–31; 552, 3–15; 552, 29–
30; Cf. Didymus the Blind, In Zach. 4, 58 cited in Dockter (2013), 130, n. 663. Bishops had
abandoned their sacred duties and engaged in earthly pursuits, so Cyprian, Laps. 12: Episcopi
plurimi ... usuris multiplicantibus faenus augere (cited in ibid., 133, n. 671).

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another’s property as one’s own through being in a dominant position, even if such a
practice happens to be under cover of a business transaction.”150
A law of the Emperor Marcian confirms that monks and clerics became, on
account of “the sickness of greed,” overseers of lay estates.151 It is no surprise to
encounter a monk from the monastery of Apa Apollo at Bawit lending money to a
villager at a profit (ἐπικέρδεια);152 or in 591 a presbyter at the church at Oxy-
rhynchus lending six solidi to two brothers to pay their taxes but asking them to
mortgage their land and pay the interest in kind, which usually was higher than
interest in money.153 Frequently the interest was concealed in the principal stipu-
lated in the contract which exceeded the amount actually lent, a practice common
in Roman antiquity which helped the clergy circumvent the church legislation
which prohibited usury.154 But even among themselves, monks borrowed signifi-
150 PG 45.233; trans. Silvas (2007), 223. Chrysostom complained that priests preoccupied them-
selves with vintage and harvesting, with buying and selling: Hom. Matt. LXXXVI, 4 (PG 58:762–
763); monks in western Galilee were also involved in producing oil and wine for export: Ashkenazi
(2014), 754.
151 Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum II.1, text from Schwartz (1962) 157, 18 [353]; Adesi (1990),
334; a tenant farmer appears in debt to the church of Holy Mary at Antaeopolis (Tkoou) in the
sixth century in MacCoull (2011), 31; the ecclesiastical economic hierarchy that permitted a
church to manage whole villages in sixth-century Oxyrhynchus included: “a village clerk, a sub-
pronoetes, the chief pronoetes, presumably the church oikonomos and then bishop.” Ruffini
(2008), 86; on the leasing of land by monks in sixth-century Egypt, see Wipszycka (2011), 199–
202; the monk Kopreus, the original owner of a well-equipped bakery might have provided a
loan to the lessees enabling them to start production just like Serena, the subsequent owner did,
in P.Oxy. xvi 1890 (A.D. 508): ibid. 193–194. On merchants among the clergy who were liable to
pay the chrysargyron, see CT 13.1.9 (A.D. 372); Guichard (2012), 398. In mid-fourth-century Bostra,
in Jordan, the church had bought shops from the proceeds it gained from the sale of figs and
leased them to artisans. Inscription Nr. 9439 in Sartre (1982), 361–362; cf. shop belonging to the
church of Alexandria rented to a κάπηλος in Leontius of Neapolis, Life of John the Almsgiver, 363,
40–44.
152 Benaissa (2010), 375–380; cf. a lector and an abbot of the monastery of Sergius and Bacchus
in the Negev, in Palestine lent to a layman six solidi at an interest rate of 6 %. P. Ness. III. 46 (605),

text from Kraemer (1958), 136–137. A series of papyri dating from 487 till the seventh century show
monks of the monastery of Apa Apollos near the village Titkois, south of the city of Hermopolis
involved in loans of money and sales of wheat and wine for future delivery: Kruit (1994), 68. For
instance, SB VI 9051 (loan of wheat) in ibid. 80–82.
153 P. Warr 10; in 618, villagers who raised chickens had to pay interest in chickens though they
had borrowed money from Apa Ol: BGU 3.725.
154 Markiewicz (2009), 181, 188, 191. For the importance of canon 17 of the Council of Nicaea
which stipulated that clerics who practiced usury would be deposed, see Gofas (2002), 1096; for
other canons, see Bianci (1983), 338–341.

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cant amounts of money conceding rights of ownership of their monasterion,

which was a small house, to the lender.155
Although, in contrast to individual monks and priests, monasteries and
churches rarely appeared as institutional lenders, it seems that when they did,
they demanded that the borrower respect the terms of the contract, the legal
interest rate, and appealed to the piety of the party with whom they had a dispute
only when for objective reasons it would have been difficult for them to go to
court. In A.D. 553 Hapa Hierax, a monastery of considerable wealth, which could
send a business agent as far as Constantinople, lent eighty solidi at 6 % to
Diogenes vir illustrissimus originating from Oxyrrhynchus receiving as a mortgage

the land the borrower owned in the village Ophis. When Diogenes borrowed fifty
solidi again from the monastery, the interests of the monastery were guaranteed
by a general mortgage on the present and future property of Diogenes in case the
latter defaulted on his loans. Eventually however because Diogenes – who later
died ̶ had also mortgaged the land to Strategios, they had to get the money owed
from the latter by appealing to his piety.156 The monastery competed with the most
important lay landowner of Oxyrhynchus, the Apions, to lay hold on the mort-
gaged property of Diogenes. Through the advance of credit it strove to increase its
wealth.157
Evidently the implementation of the Christian redistributive ideals left much
to be desired. The reluctance of the aristocracy to help the needy by no other
means than through the advancement of interest-bearing loans to the church and
the mismanagement of the ecclesiastical property itself, on account of corruption,
meant that even in wealthy churches, such as that of Alexandria, a minority
among the poor were supported by church alms. In a city that numbered almost
half a million inhabitants 7, 500 of the poor received assistance.158 While, in the
late sixth century a charitable bishop of a wealthy diocese of Galatia spent
annually one-ninth of the money donated by the urban elite to the church on
alms. Yet the well-to-do censured the behavior of the bishop and forced him to
resign.159
155 The deeds of fictitious sales of Eulogios’ monasterion in Labla, on the outskirts of Arsinoe
(A.D. 513) twice in the same year in P. Dubl. 32, 33 in order to secure a loan from another monk and
another transaction of the same kind in P. Dubl. 34 are analyzed by Urbanik (2013), 153–158.
156 Urbanik (2009), 225–227.
157 Twelve years later after the affair with Diogenes the monastery Hapa Hierax laid claims
against Apion II as shown in the contract signed by the two parties, see P. Oxy. LXIII.4397 and
Ruffini (2008), 88–90.
158 Wipzycka (2002), 71. Cf. Sotinel (2005), 110;
159 ἐλεημοσύνην ... ἐκ τῶν ἐκεῖσε καρποφορουμένων ... κατεγογγύζετο ὡς εἰς ἐλάττωσιν φέρων
τἠν ἐκκλησίαν, καίτοι γε ἐκ τῶν τῆς τραπέζης αὐτῷ τεταγμένων τριακοσίων ἑξήκονταπέντε

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IV Conclusions
An evolutionist approach to Christianization would posit that from the moment
the religion of Jesus became the official religion of the state in the Roman Empire,
it would have toned down its radicalism. At the level of theory, we have seen that
in certain respects, this was not the case. The Church Fathers did not view lending
as a philanthropic gesture of mutual benefit to both parties involved, as a
relationship of a contractual nature, initiated by the debtor on his own will. On
the contrary, they demystified the dominant ideology by depicting usury as an act
of violence that aimed at denuding the debtor of his possessions. Indeed legal,
literary and papyrological evidence has shown that the usurer, taking advantage
of an adverse conjuncture, a bad crop or the onerous taxation, often sent the
debtor to prison and forced him to cede to him the property he had pledged as
security. As a Novella of Justinian informed us they even dared obstruct the
funeral of the insolvent debtor to force his relatives to pay back the amount of
money owed.
Nevertheless, because the working poor relied on credit in order to live for
frequently they received a loan instead of a wage for remuneration, the church
of the Nestorian bishops of Mesopotamia, for instance, paid heed to the demand
of their congregation and endorsed lending at a moderate rate of interest.
Simeon the Stylite also recommended halving the legal rate of interest, and not
the abolition of usurious lending. This accommodating attitude did not over-
shadow the traditional debt abolitionist stance of the Church: it simply coex-
isted with it.
Traditionally scholars have drawn a distinction between an emotional re-
gime of unlimited desire in capitalism and of bounded desire in premodern
societies, given that the latter are characterized by a “‘value laden purposive
order with definite limits.’”160 Yet, the late Roman Empire was, in a certain
sense, “proto-capitalist.”161 Wealth, as the Church Fathers ruefully observed,
had no intrinsic natural properties; it acquired substance from the competitive
νομισμάτων τεσσαράκοντα μόνον τὸν πάντα ἐνιαυτὸν χρωμένῳ ... (George the Presbyter, Life of
Theodore of Sykeon 78, 1–8).
160 Christopher J. Berry’s view on desire elaborated in his work on luxury cited by Armitage and
Roberts (2016), 4.
161 I borrow the term proto-capitalism from Bintliff (2014), 49 even if it refers to the early Empire.
He refers to long-distance investment and inter-regional business contracts. That is also the case
for the period under study. On the other hand, imperfect markets existed in certain commodities
like grain, for instance. Scheidel (2014), 29: “The tributary mobilization of [grain] surplus was
more important than comparative advantage.”

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emulation of desires.162 As a consequence, the imitation of the way of life of the

elite by the so-called middle classes, their keeping pace with the ceaseless
refinement of taste of their superiors led to their ever-increasing dependence on
credit for the purchase of the rare and prestigious luxury items that marked high
status.163
The church became embedded in the credit economy of late antiquity.164
Members of the elite paid for charity by advancing loans to the bankrupt church
of Antioch and the working poor, sometimes, felt inclined to borrow in order to
give alms. Ecclesiastical establishments ran deficits on account of corruption,
factional struggles and simony, which meant that the holders of power treated
church property as if it were their own. They squandered the alms destined for
the poor and tried to profit during their time in office, by advancing usurious
loans. In the historical reality portrayed in the papyri, however, we rarely learn
of the details of the usurious practices of churches or bishops. Far more often we
witness monks and priests providing micro-credit to farmers at the official rate of
interest as regulated by secular law. Without wishing to belittle the philanthropic
work of the ecclesiastical and monastic establishments and the very objective
difficulties of its financing, it seems that we are not allowed to speak about
redistribution of wealth in the Christian polity, only about its targeted circula-
tion.
The balance, admittedly a very fragile one, that Christians tried to strike
between earthly pursuits and their more spiritual social concerns is eloquently
shown in the case of a pious couple, Andronikos, a banker (ἀργυροπράτης) and
his wife Athanasia, the daughter of a banker who, in sixth century Antioch,
“divided the profits from the money-dealing and their wealth into three portions:
162 Cf. Gabriel Tarde: “Le progrès économique suppose deux choses: d’une part, un nombre
croissant de désirs different ... D’autre part, un nombre croissant d’exemplaires semblables de
chaque désir considéré à part” (Psychologie Économique, 1, 165–166 cited in Latour and Lépinay
2008, 59). “La vérité de la richesse comme de la monnaie est de nature intersubjective, c’est ce
qu’exprime avec force et pleinement l’imitation.” (Aglietta and Orléan 2002, 77).
163 In relatively underdeveloped rural regions of early modern Germany, too, borrowing was not
associated, necessarily, with poverty or distress. Seventeenth-century England also attests to the
primacy of consumption loans. In Germany productive loans and taxation were the main causes
of borrowing. Ogilvie, et al. (2012), 143–144, 159. In the early Roman period elite borrowing was
mainly for non-productive purposes but “credit ... extended the monetary economy where it was
weak” (von Reden 2012, 279).
164 That is why we cannot say that “les moines et les institutions monastiques préfigurent donc
les mécanismes du système bancaire dès le Ve siècle égyptien,” as Giorda (2015), 278 does. The
author’s excellent article proves the contrary.

Authenticated
one for the poor, another for the monks, and a third for themselves.” 165 Usury was
condoned if one third of its profits went to the needy.
A hagiography of the mid-fifth century brings into sharp relief the contra-
diction between the accumulated wealth of the church and its rhetoric of radical
egalitarianism. A debtor who was hard-pressed by his creditors entered the
martyrium of S.Theodore at Euchaita in Pontus and stole one of the silver
candelabra in order to sell it and pay off his debts. The martyr helped him
accomplish the theft and sale of his treasure, but then the thief returned and gave
back two candelabra to the martyr. Undoubtedly thanks to the martyr the sale had
been profitable. It is clear that the martyr acted as an accomplice to the sacrile-
gious act, according to the hagiographer, but only because he knew that, owing
to his miraculous intervention, the treasures of the church would multiply.166
On the other hand, it seems that towards the end of the Byzantine period c.
1400 the memory of the early Christian teachings was still alive. In a legal case
tried in the ecclesiastical court of Patriarch Matthew 1st the litigant solicited the
“customary help the church offered to the indigent in respect to the abolition of
interests.”167 It is this tradition that has been forgotten.
Bibliographic Abbreviations
CT = Codex Theodosianus. The Theodosian Code. Translated by Clyde Pharr.
Princeton: Princeton U.P., 1952.
Nov. = Justininian Novella. Corpus Juris Civilis III. Berlin: Wiedemann, 1959.
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Journal of Ancient History 2017; 5(1): 134–178

Keywords: ancient debt, ancient conspicuous consumption, ancient exploitation,

1 The argument is spelled out in Samellas (2010), 225–249.

*Corresponding author: Antigone Samellas, Pontou 3, 14671 Athens Greece,

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10 Benefactor’s ideology attested by a banker in an inscription from Cirta in Africa: omnibus

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I Borrowing and conspicuous consumption

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clients.35 Archeological findings from late antique Corinth, Halicarnassos and

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The transfer of mortgaged property to the creditors in conjunction with the

Egyptian evidence: Harper (2008), 92, 95.

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80 Bintliff (2012), 72.

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nistic neighbor,”99 to members of the imperial bureaucracy, (especially if they

P. Ness. III.46 (A.D. 605), text from Kraemer (1958), 136–137.

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ers.101 These, according to Chrysostom, were involved in an exploitative rela-

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Basil of Caesarea writes that “the money-lender on receiving something is

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“And should we wish to abandon this joint-labor-partnership between us we shall immedi-

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III Credit, charity and the church

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cup in order to obtain a loan.129 As to the landed wealth of the ecclesiastical

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(Syriac Life of Simeon, 77 in Doran 1992, 159, 196).

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According to the perspicacious observations of Shenoute on the civil and

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cant amounts of money conceding rights of ownership of their monasterion,

Diogenes vir illustrissimus originating from Oxyrrhynchus receiving as a mortgage

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emulation of desires.162 As a consequence, the imitation of the way of life of the

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