“... This saying begins with reiterating the biblical and early Christian prohibition of taking interest on a loan; 95.2 then intensifies it with the command to lend without expecting the money back at all (Lk. 6.30–35). [...] Exod. 22.24/25; Lev. 25.35–37; cf. Neh 5.7, 10; Ps. 15.5; Ezek 18.8, 13, 17; 22.12. Note the restriction, rather than blanket prohibition, in Deut. 23.19–20. [...] The reason for the prohibition of usury in GTh 95.1, then, is not merely the broader opposition to engagement in business in Thomas (cf. GTh 64), or the practical risk involved in lending money, or the philosophical critique that it is unnatural for money to breed money. The OT prohibitions are unlikely to be of interest to Thomas (cf. GTh 52). Nor perhaps is it only the patristic critique that usury contradicts the principle of Christian love which entails that one should give without expecting even repayment, let alone interest, though this may be part of Thomas’s concern (cf. GTh 25). ...”