Aristotle (384-322 BC) formulated the classical view against usury.

Aristotle understood that money is sterile; it doesn't beget more money the way cows beget more cows. He knew that "Money exists not by nature but by law":

"The most hated sort (of wealth getting) and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exhange but not to increase at interest. And this term interest (tokos), whichmeans the birth of money from money is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent.

Wherefore of all modes of gettng wealth, this is the most unnatural." (1258b POLITICS)

And he especially disliked usurers:

"...those who ply sordid trades, pimps and all such people, and those who lend small sums at high rates. For all these take more than they ought, and from the wrong sources. What is common to them is evenidently a sordid love of gain..." (1122a, ETHICS)