The practice of usury and trading generally is often forbidden in the Canons, &c., for the clergy, but its prohibition for the laity is much more unusual: cf., however, Canon V. of the Council of Carthage (419), quod (sc. fenus accipere) in laicis, reprehenditur id multo magis debet et in clericis prædamnari. Scripture certainly is against the clergy participating in lucrative employments, though it was not easy always to prevent them: it had become, for instance, a common practice in S. Cyprian’s day in the North African Church (cf. de laps. 6). But the secular laws certainly countenanced it in the laity (as Aug. Ep. 154 acknowledges). Leo the Emperor is said by Grotius to have been the first who “existimans omne fenus Christiano interdictum, lege id ipsum communi sanxit” (Quesnel).