Prohibition of Usury

利子の禁止 ／ usury-ban　—　Institutions

A rule of the medieval Christian church that made it a sin to lend money and charge interest.

The rationale was "Time belongs to God. To profit from time is to steal what is God's." The forbidden work did not disappear; the people who performed it changed. Lending was forced upon non-Christians, and a loophole emerged in the form of profit from money exchange. ⚠ In Japan, there is no theology that considers interest itself a sin. When comparing it with *suiko* or *kashiage*, this difference must be considered first.