The Evil of Money-Lending

As the interminable opéra bouffe drags on in Washington over the "debt ceiling" and "fiscal cliff," a new book lands on my desk from the publisher quite unexpectedly: Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen, They Who Give from Evil: The Response of the Eastern Church to Moneylending in the Early Christian Era (Pickwick Publications, 2012), xiii+207pp.

The author, who has written reviews for Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies recently, is a visiting professor at the Pacific Lutheran University. About her book the publisher tells us: 

The purpose of They Who Give from Evil is to consider the financial and salvific implications of usury on the community and the individual soul as it is addressed within the sermons of a selection of early Christian Greek authors, in the historical context of the fourth century Roman Empire. Although focusing on two Greek texts, St. Basil's Homily on Psalm Fourteen and Against Those Who Practice Usury by St. Gregory of Nyssa, Ihssen is able to shed fascinating insight on Roman life and illustrate the rich social justice theologies of the patristic world.

I look forward to seeing this book discussed further in the new year, and also to interviewing the author.