Bullinger, Usury and the Covenant

Baker has written on his understanding of Bullinger on usury and its connection with the covenant. Bullinger wrote on usury because it was an issue raised by the Anabaptists. The following is an extract from Baker’s book:

“Bullinger’s teaching on usury was fully consistent with his covenant idea. Indeed the covenant condition of piety or love for the neighbor was the basis for his entire social ethic including the realm of economics. In De testamento he listed the loan and other economic matters among the items that were included under ‘that part of the covenant that prescribes integrity and commands that we walk in the presence of God.’ To Bullinger, the second degree of the law was the equivalent of the Love Commandment, and it explained hos sinful man could keep the conditions of the covenant. So when Bullinger referred to the Love Commandment, he meant more than Calvin’s general appeal to Christian love and equity, although that was certainly involved. For Bullinger, the Love Commandment was the summary of the conditions of the covenant, God’s eternal will for His people.

The importance of the covenant is quite evident in Bullinger’s interpretation of the Deuteronomy text (ie Deuteronomy 23:19-20). Since God’s law did not change, Bullinger could not simply apply the prohibition to those historical circumstances as Calvin did. Bullinger agreed with Calvin that the permission of usurious interest was nothing but a temporary privilege. Unlike Calvin, however, he thought that the prohibition among brothers applied only to the dishonorable Wucher, which violated the covenant conditions of love. If Calvin appealed to a brotherhood where interest was authorized, which was quite different from a brotherhood where it was abominated, Bullinger simply suggested that the medieval concept of brotherhood was false. Honorable usury had never been prohibited among brothers – Jews of Christians. This standard had not been altered for Christians but was simply restated in the Love Commandment.

Thus, when Bullinger was confronted with the radicals’ strict and logical application of the communitarian ethic to the contemporary situation, he did not simply equivocate or revise the medieval theory as did Luther and Zwingli. Like Calvin later, he abandoned the ole theory and formulated a new economic ethic that corresponded more closely to the actual economic conditions of his day. Yet, in forming his new economic ethic, Bullinger drew from the record of the covenant. The guide for daily economic activity in Christian society was the Love Commandment, the conditions of the eternal covenant of God.”