Greed
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Greed is an insatiable desire for material gain or social value, such as status or power sometimes at the expense of others in the community.
1909 painting The Worship of Mammon, the New Testament representation and personification of material greed, by Evelyn De Morgan
Shakespeare Sacrificed: Or the Offering to Avarice by James Gillray
The Father and Mother by Boardman Robinson depicting War as the offspring of Greed and Pride
Jacques Callot, Greed, probably after 1621
Usury
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Usury is the practice of making loans that are seen as unfairly enriching the lender. The term may be used in a moral sense—condemning taking advantage of others' misfortunes—or in a legal sense, wher
Greed
…of all evil is greed"); however the Pardoner himself serves us as a caricature of churchly greed. Martin Luther especially condemned the greed of the usurer: Therefore, is there, on this earth, no greater enemy of man (after the devil) than a gripe-money, and usurer, for he wants to be God over all men…
Of Usury, from Brant's Stultifera Navis (Ship of Fools), 1494; woodcut attributed to Albrecht Dürer
Christ Drives the Usurers Out of the Temple, a woodcut by Lucas Cranach the Elder in Passionary of Christ and Antichrist
St. Bernardino of Siena, treatise on contracts and usury (Tractatus de contractis et usuris), manuscript, 15th century
Magna Carta commands, "If any one has taken anything, whether much or little, by way of loan from Jews, and if he dies before that debt is paid, the debt shall not carry usury so long as the heir is under age, from whomsoever he may hold. And if that debt falls into our hands, we will take only the principal contained in the note."