The Bible in the First Book of Hebrews warns about Usury which is not money lending, but the practice of charging time-dependent or compounded interest on loans. It is this practice not the mere practice of lending which was so excorciated in the text. In a small, simple society it is easy to see where the interest money is never created in a loan, that a man's ability to pay interest depends on another person being deprived of his share of money. In a temple scene in the Gospel of John, Jesus clears the Temple Square outdoors of money lenders and merchants, saying the House of the Lord was not for conducting business. It is said he beat them with a rod and scattered their tables. The practice of reading the law on behalf of clients was not invented at the time, or Jesus would have no doubt burnt the temple to the ground and started over.
Usury is described in detail, as well as other business practices in various books the Bible.
The art and science of Usury became the sustaining business of the Ashkenazy sect in Europe for 15 centuries. Later in the modern era, goldsmiths in London formed a consortium who approached Charles I, and obtained a grant to set up Chartered Banks, which would issue bonds of credit to the King to support his projects, (mostly foreign wars). In return they were given the right to loan 4 times more money than they had on hand as assets. This was the start of modern banking in England. The goldsmiths had grown rich as the result of Charles' confiscatory practices which had left the gentry's gold and silver deposits with the Crown seized and taxes at an all time high.
The business class had begun depositing their wealth with the goldsmiths, and were receiving interest in return. This was a far better deal than the Crown offered, and as well the money was then out of the King's clutches. The goldsmiths offered letters of credit in scrip which could be cashed overseas due to the network of fellowship that existed amongst them, extending the reach of currency to as of that time, an unheard-of geographic scope. This scrip was the nascence of the pound note; the scrip being generally issued nominally in lbs of silver.
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