על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ב י״זOn the Special Laws, Book II 17
א׳
1[71] So high is the reverence which he assigns to the seventh day that other things which share in the qualities of the number are honoured in his estimation. Thus he lays down a rule for cancellation of debts in every seventh year, both as a succour to the poor and as a challenge to the rich to shew humanity, in order that by giving some share of their own to the needy they may expect to receive the same kindness themselves, if any disaster befall them. Human vicissitudes are manifold, and life is not always on the same anchorage, but is like an unsteady wind, ever veering round to the opposite quarter.
ב׳
2[72] Now the best course would be that the creditors’ liberality should be extended to all debtors. But since they are not all capable of showing magnanimity, some being under the dominion of their money or not very well off, he laid down that they too should make a contribution, the sacrifice of which would not give them pain.
ג׳
3[73] He does not allow them to exact money from their fellow-nationals, but does permit the recovery of dues from the others. He distinguishes the two by calling the first by the appropriate name of brethren, suggesting that none should grudge to give of his own to those whom nature has made his brothers and fellow-heirs. Those who are not of the same nation he describes as aliens, reasonably enough, and the condition of the alien excludes any idea of partnership, unless indeed by a transcendency of virtues he converts even it into a tie of kinship, since it is a general truth that common citizenship rests on virtues and laws which propound the morally beautiful as the sole good.
ד׳
4[74] Now lending money on interest is a blameworthy action, for a person who borrows is not living on a superabundance of means, but is obviously in need, and since he is compelled to pay the interest as well as the capital, he must necessarily be in the utmost straits. And while he thinks he is being benefited by the loan, he is actually like senseless animals suffering further damage from the bait which is set before him.
ה׳
5[75] I ask you, Sir Moneylender, why do you disguise your want of a partner’s feeling by pretending to act as a partner? Why do you assume outwardly a kindly and charitable appearance but display in your actions inhumanity and a savage brutality, exacting more than you lend, sometimes double, reducing the pauper to further depths of poverty?
ו׳
6[76] And therefore no one sympathizes when in your eagerness for larger gains you lose your capital as well. In their glee all call you extortioner and money-grubber and other similar terms, you who have lain in wait for the misfortunes of others, and regarded their ill-luck as your own good luck.
ז׳
7[77] It has been said that vice has no sense of sight; so too the moneylender is blind, and has no vision of the time of repayment, when it will hardly be possible, if at all, to obtain what he has expected to gain by his greed.
ח׳
8[78] Such a person may well pay the penalty of his avarice by receiving back merely what he provided, and learn not to make a trade of other people’s misfortunes and enrich himself in improper ways. And the borrowers should be granted the privilege of the law’s charity, and pay neither simple nor compound interest, but just the principal. For later, as the proper occasion arise, they will make the same sacrifice to their present creditors and requite with equal assistance those who were the first to bestow the benefit.