It only remains to refer to the third servant, whose sad unfaithfulness and failure of service we already, in some measure, understand. Summoned to his account, he returned the talent entrusted to him with this explanation, that, knowing his Master to be a hard man, reaping where he did not sow, and gathering (the corn) where He did not winnow,' [5541] he had been afraid of incurring responsibility, [5542] and hence hid in the earth the talent which he now restored. It needs no comment to show that his own words, however honest and self-righteous they might sound, admitted dereliction of his work and duty as a servant, and entire misunderstanding as well as heart-alienation from his Master. He served Him not, and he knew Him not; he loved Him not, and he sympathised not with Him. But, besides, his answer was also an insult and a medacious pretext. He had been idle and unwilling to work for his Master. If he worked it would be for himself. He would not incur the difficulties, the self-denial, perhaps the reproach, connected with his Master's work. We recognise here those who, although His servants, yet, from self-indulgence and wordliness, will not do work for Christ with the one talent entrusted to them - that is, even though the responsibility and claim upon them be the smallest; and who deem it sufficient to hide it in the ground - not to lose it - or to preserve it, as they imagine, from being used for evil, without using it to trade for Christ. The falseness of the excuse, that he was afraid to do anything with it - an excuse too often repeated in our days - lest, peradventure, he might do more harm than good, was now fully exposed by the Master. Confessedly, it proceeded from a want of knowledge of Him, as if He were a hard, exacting Master, not One Who reckons even the least service as done to Himself; from misunderstanding also of what work for Christ is, in which nothing can ever fail or be lost; and, lastly, from want of joyous sympathy with it. And so the Master put aside the flimsy pretext. Addressing him as a wicked and slothful servant,' He pointed out that, even on his own showing, if he had been afraid to incur responsibility , he might have cast' (a word intended to mark the absence of labour) the money to the bankers,' when, at His return, He would have received His own, with interest.' Thus he might, without incurring responsibility, or much labour, have been, at least in a limited sense, faithful to his duty and trust as a servant.
The reference to the practice of lodging money, at interest, with the bankers, raises questions too numerous and lengthly for full discussion in this place. The Jewish Law distinguished between interest' and increase' (neshekh and tarbith), and entered into many and intricate details on the subject. [5543] Such transactions were forbidden with Israelites, but allowed with Gentiles. As in Rome, the business of money-changers' (argentarii, nummularii) and that of bankers' (collectarii, mensularii) seem to have run into each other. The Jewish bankers' bear precisely the same name (Shulchani, mensularius, trapeztes). In Rome very high interest seems to have been charged in early times; by-and-by it was lowered, till it was fixed, first at 8½, and then at 4 1/6, per cent. But these laws were not of permanent duration. Practically, usury was unlimited. It soon became the custom to charge monthly interest at the rate of 1 per cent a month. Yet there were prosperous times, as at the close of the Republic, when the rate of interest was so low as 4 percent; during the early Empire it stood at 8 per cent. This, of course, in what we may call fair business transactions. Beyond them, in the almost incredible extravagance, luxury, and indebtedness of even some of the chief historical personages, most usurious transactions took place (especailly in the provinces), and that by people in high position (Brutus in Cyprus, and Seneca in Britain). Money was lent at 12, 24, and even 48 per cent.; the bills bore a larger sum than that actually received; and the interest was added to the capital, so that debt and interest alike grew. In Greece there were regular State banks, while in Rome such provision was only made under exceptional circumstances. Not unfrequently the twofold business of money-changing and banking was combined. Such bankers' undertook to make payments, to collect moneys and accounts, to place out money at interest - in short, all the ordinary business of this kind. [5544] There can be no question that the Jewish bankers of Palestine and elsewhere were engaged in the same undertakings, while the dispersion of their race over the world would render it more easy to have trusted correspondents in every city. Thus, we find that Herod Agrippa borrowed from the Jewish Alabarch at Alexandria the sum of 20,000 drachms, which was paid him in Italy, the commission and interest on it amounting to no less than 8 1/2 per cent. (2,500 drachms). [5545]