the assumption that usury is something that one properly practices on one’s enemies, and therefore, by extension, that all commerce partakes something of the nature of war, never entirely disappears. Calvin, for instance, denied that Deuteronomy only referred to the Amalekites; clearly, he said, it meant that usury was acceptable when dealing with Syrians or Egyptians; indeed with all nations with whom the Jews traded.30 The result of opening the gates was, at least tacitly, to suggest that one could now treat anyone, even a neighbor, as a foreigner.
