by Max Weber
46) What we mean by this may be illustrated by the example of the Manifesto to the Irish, with which in January 1650 Cromwell commenced his war of extermination against them. It was his reply to the manifestos of the Irish (Catholic) clergy of Clonmacnoise, dated December 4 and 13, 1649. The most significant passages read as follows:
Englishmen had good inheritances (i.e., in Ireland) which many of them purchased with their money . . . they had good leases from Irishmen for long time to come, great stocks thereupon, houses and plantations erected at their cost and charge. . . . You broke the union . . . at a time when Ireland was in perfect peace and when through the example of English industry, through commerce and traffic, that which was in the nations’ hands was better to them than if all Ireland had been in their possession. . . . Is God, will God be with you? I am confident he will not.
What is significant about this manifesto, which is reminiscent of leading articles in the English press at the time of the Boer War, is not that the capitalist “interest” of the English is presented as the legal justification for the war—this could no doubt equally well have been used as an argument in negotiations between, let us say, Venice and Genoa on the extent of their spheres of influence in the Far East. No, what is special about this document is that Cromwell, addressing the Irish themselves, and calling God to witness, bases the moral justification for their subjugation on the fact that English capital has educated the Irish in the habit of work. Anyone who knows his character will be aware of the profound subjective conviction with which he does this. (The manifesto can be found in Carlyle, and extracts are published and analyzed in Gardiner’s History of the Commonwealth, vol. 1, p. 163f.)
47) This is not the place to go into more detail. Compare the writers cited in note 49.
48) See the remarks in the fine book by Jülicher on the “Gleichnisreden Jesu” [The Parables of Jesus], vol. 2, p. 636 and pp. 108f.
49) Regarding the following, see again Eger, op. cit. Worthy of mention, too, is Schneckenburger’s fine book, which even today has not been superceded: Vergleichende Darstellung des lutherischen und reformierten Lehrbegriffes (Stuttgart: Güder, 1855). Luthardt’s Ethik Luthers [Luther’s ethic], p. 84 of the first edition, the only one available to me, fails to give a true picture of the development [of these ideas]. Compare also Seeberg’s Dogmengeschichte [Dogmatic History], vol. 2, p. 262, below. Of no value at all is the article on “Beruf” in the Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, which instead of a scholarly analysis of the concept and its origin contains all kinds of rather shallow remarks on everything under the sun, including women’s rights and similar topics. Of the economic [nationalökonomisch] literature on Luther, I should like to mention just the works of Schmoller (Geschichte der nationalökonomischen Ansichten in Deutschland während der Reformationszeit, Zeitschrift für Staatswissenschaft, vol. 16, 1860), Wiskemann’s prizewinning dissertation (1861) and the study by Frank G. Ward (Darstellung und Würdigung von Luthers Ansichten vom Staat und seinen wirtschaftlichen Aufgaben, Conrads Abhandlungen, vol. 21, Jena, 1898).
50) Interpretation of the seventh chapter of the First Letter to the Corinthians, 1523, Erlanger Ausgabe, vol. 51, pp. 1f. Here, in the light of this passage, Luther interprets the idea of the “freedom of all callings” before God in the following way:
1) Certain human institutions must be rejected (monastic oath, the ban on mixed marriages, etc). 2) The fulfilment (in itself a matter of indifference in the sight of God) of secular duties toward one’s neighbor is commanded as the duty of charity. In truth, we are here dealing with a typical debate (see, for example, here) on the dualism of the lex naturae compared with justification before God.
51) Compare the passage from Von Kaufhandlung und Wucher [On Trade and Usury], 1524 (which Sombart justifiably used as a motto for his work on Handwerksgeist [the spirit of craft work], that is, traditionalism): “Darum muβt du dir fürsetzen, nichts denn deine ziemliche Nahrung zu suchen in solchem Handel, danach Kost, Mühe, Arbeit und Gefahr rechnen und überschlagen und also dann die Ware selbst setzen, steigern oder niedern, daβ du solcher Arbeit und Mühe Lohn davon habst.”
[Therefore you must endeavor to seek nothing but the food that is due to you in such trade, and thereafter calculate provisions, trouble, labor, and danger. Add this together and then add the goods themselves, and raise or reduce the figure so that you have the reward for such labor and toil.]
The principle is here formulated very much in the spirit of Aquinas.
52) As early as the letter to H. V. Sternberg of 1530, in which he dedicates to him his exegesis of the 117th Psalm, he declares the “estate” of the (lower) nobility to be instituted by God, in spite of its moral depravity (Erlangen edition, vol. 40, p. 282, bottom). The decisive significance of the Münzer riots for the development of this view is very clear from the letter (p. 282, top). Compare also Eger, op. cit., p. 150.
53) Luther also commences his interpretation (1530) of the 111th Psalm, verses 5 and 6 (Erlangen edition, vol. 40, pp. 215–16) with a polemic against the surpassing of the secular order by monasteries, etc. Now, however (in contrast to positive law such as that created by emperor and lawyers), lex naturae is “directly identical with God’s justice: it is God’s institution and embraces in particular the division of people according to estates” (p. 215, par. 2). However, he emphasizes strongly that it is only before God that the estates are equal.
54) This faith in providence is taught in particular in “Von Konzilien und Kirchen” (1539) and “Kurzes Bekenntnis vom heiligen Sakrament” (1545).
The extent to which the idea of the testing [Bewährung] of the Christian in his daily work [Berufsarbeit] and conduct of life—an idea that dominated Calvinism and is so important for us—remained in the background for Luther is shown by the passage in “Von Konzilien und Kirchen” (1539, Erlangen edition, vol. 25, p. 376, bottom): “In addition to these seven principal features” (by which the true Church may be recognized) “there are also more external signs” (by which the holy Christian Church may be recognized) . . . if we are not fornicators and drunkards, proud, arrogant, extravagant; but chaste, self-controlled sober. . . .” According to Luther, these signs are not as certain as those which are “more elevated” (pure doctrine, prayer, etc.) “because in the practice of such works some of the heathen appear to be as proficient as the Christians, and by these standards can sometimes even seem more holy than they.”
As we shall shortly mention, Calvin’s personal position was not essentially different, although that of Protestantism certainly was. Certainly, in Luther’s thinking the Christian serves God only “in vocatione,” not “per vocationem” (Eger, pp. 117ff.).
However, among the German mystics there are at least certain approaches along these lines with regard to the idea of proof [Bewährungsgedanken] (admittedly more in its Pietist than in its Calvinist interpretation, and understood in a purely psychological sense). See, for example, Seeberg, Dogmengeschichte, p. 195 (the passage quoted above from Suso), as well as the previously quoted passage from Tauler).
56) His final point of view is then set down in certain sections of his exegesis of Genesis (in the Opera Latina Exegetica. Elsperger edition):
Volume 4, page 109: “Neque haec fuit levis tentatio, intentum esse suae vocationi et de aliis non esse curiosum. . . . Paucissimi sunt, qui sua sorte vivant contenti . . .” (ibid., p. 111). Nostrum autem est, ut vocanti Deo pareamus . . .” (p. 112). “Regula igitur haec servanda est, ut unusquisque maneat in sua vocatione et suo dono contentus vivat, de aliis autem non sit curiosus.” This essentially corresponds very closely to Thomas Aquinas’s traditionalist position (Summa Theologica, IIa, IIac, q. 118 art. I.) “Unde necesse est, quod bonum hominis circa ea consistat in quadam mensura, dum scilicet homo . . . quaerit habere exteriores divitias, prout sunt necessariae ad vitam eius secundum suam conditionem. Et ideo in excessu huius mensurae consistit peccatum, dum scilicet aliquis supra debitum modum vult eas vel acquirere vel ret
inere, quod pertinet ad avaritiam.” Aquinas derives the sinful character of an excessive acquisitive drive [Erwerbstrieb] (beyond what is required for one’s condition in life) from the lex naturae as expressed in the purpose (ratio) of external possessions, whereas Luther derives it from God’s providence. On the relationship between faith and calling in Luther, see also volume 7, p. 225: “. . . quando es fidelis, tum placent Deo etiam physica, carnalia, animalia officia, sive edas, sive bibas, sive vigiles, sive dormias, quae mere corporalia et animalia sunt. Tanta res est fides . . . Verum est quidem, placere Dei etiam in impiis sedulitatem et industriam in officio” (this activity in working life is a virtue of lex naturae). “Sed obstat incredulitas et vana gloria, ne possint opera sua referre ad gloriam Dei” (reminiscent of Calvinist phraseology). “. . . Merentur igitur etiam impiorum bona opera in hac quidem vita praemia sua” (contrast Augustine’s “vitia specie virtutum palliata”) “sed non numerantur, non colliguntur in altro.”
57) In the Kirchenpostille [Church Devotions] (Erlanger ed., vol. 10, pp. 233, 235–36, we read: “Everyone is called to some calling.” He should await this calling (here it is even called a “command”) and in so doing serve God. It is not the performance but the obedience shown that is pleasing to God.
58) Despite what was said above about the effect of Pietism on the efficiency of female workers, such teaching accords with the assertion by modern entrepreneurs that, for example, strict Lutheran domestic workers today commonly, for example in Westphalia, are strongly inclined to think in a traditionalist way, and are unhappy with changes to methods of work (even when these do not involve a transition to the factory system) in spite of the increased earnings on offer, giving as their reason that in the afterlife everything will be evened out. We see that the mere fact of church allegiance and faith are not yet of any essential significance for the conduct of life as a whole. Certain far more concrete religious elements of life played their part in the early days of capitalism and—to a limited degree—still do.
59) “Later” throughout this section means: when we trace the historical origins of the Puritan concept of the calling after having described it.
60) Compare Tauler, Basel edition, Folio pp. 161f.
61) Compare Tauler’s remarkably moving [stimmungsvoll] sermon, op. cit. and folio 17–18, v. 20.
62) Anyone who shared the Levellers’ view of history [Geschichtskonstruktion] would be in the happy position of reducing this, too, to racial differences. As representatives of the Anglo-Saxons, they believed they were defending their “birthright” against the descendants of William the Conqueror and the Normans.
EDITORS’ NOTES
1. German school types are defined in the main text.
2. The numbers of Gymnasien and Realgymnasien students do not add up to 100 percent, an error that Weber carried over into the 1920 version of The Protestant Ethic. Given the importance Weber attributes to these findings, and the weighty inferences he draws from them, this is not a trivial mistake. George Becker, working on the raw Baden data, has recalculated the number of Protestant students attending the Realgymnasien at 52 percent, and even this figure may have more to do with the opportunity structure of the time rather than with distinctive religious value orientations. Note also that while Weber’s posits a time frame of 1885–91, the time frame of his source, Martin Offenbacher, is 1885/86–1894/95. For a more extended discussion of Weber’s statistics, and for critiques of them (together with references to Becker’s articles), see Editors’ Introduction, note 14.
3. In the Middle Ages, Cahors, in southwest France, was a well-known financial center. Merchants from Cahors (Cawertschen) brought their knowledge of Italian trade and banking practice to their German counterparts (see Brockhaus Enzyklopädie, 19th ed. vol. 11, Mannheim, 1990).
4. Translated as “‘Objectivity’ in Social Science and Social Policy,” in Max Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, translated and edited by Edward A. Shils and Henry A. Finch (New York: Free Press, 1949), pp. 49–112.
5. “[Let every man abide] in whatever life and in whatever citizenship he was in when he became a believer.”
The Protestant Ethic and the “Spirit” of Capitalism
II. The Idea of the Calling in Ascetic Protestantism
Contents: 1. The religious foundations of innerworldly asceticism. 2. Asceticism and Capitalism
1. [THE RELIGIOUS FOUNDATIONS OF INNERWORLDLY ASCETICISM]1
The historical bearers of ascetic Protestantism (in the sense of the expression used here) are principally four in number: 1. Calvinism in the form which it assumed in the chief areas of its dominance in the course, especially, of the seventeenth century; 2. Pietism; 3. Methodism; 4. The sects that grew out of the Baptist movement. [63] None of these movements was completely separate from the others, and even the separation from the nonascetic churches of the Reformation was not strictly enforced. Methodism only arose in the middle of the eighteenth century within the English state Church; it was not the intention of its founder that it should be a new church as much as a revival of the ascetic spirit within the old one, and it was only in the course of its development, in particular when it spread to America, that it became separated from the Anglican Church. Pietism grew out of Calvinism in England and especially Holland but remained connected with orthodoxy by imperceptible links. Toward the end of the seventeenth century, it joined Lutheranism thanks to the work of Spener, though the dogmatic basis for this was rather slender. On the whole, it remained a movement within the church. Only Zinzendorf’s Moravian, or “Herrn-hut,” Brotherhood [Brüdergemeinde],2 which had been subject to already waning Hussite and Calvinist influences, reluctantly felt the need to form a sect of its own, as Methodism had done.
At the outset of their development, Calvinism and the Baptist movement were sharply opposed, but the Baptist movement of the later seventeenth century came close to Calvinism, and indeed in the Independent sects of England and Holland at the beginning of the seventeenth century the distinction between them had become blurred. There was also a gradual transition between Pietism and Lutheranism, and the same can be said of Calvinism and the Anglican Church, which in its outward character and the spirit of its most loyal members was close to Catholicism. The ascetic movement which, in the broadest sense of this highly ambiguous word, was known as “Puritanism” [64], did, it is true, in the persons of its supporters and especially of its most devoted defenders, attack the foundations of Anglicanism, but here too the antitheses only gradually became acute in the course of conflict. And even if we completely leave aside the question of constitution and organization—indeed, especially then—the facts of the matter remain the same.
Dogmatic differences, even the most important, like those regarding the doctrines of predestination and justification, intermingled and combined in a variety of ways, and even at the beginning of the seventeenth century frequently (though not without exception) proved an obstacle to the maintenance of a distinct church community.
In particular, the examples of moral conduct which are important for our purposes can be found equally among the followers of the most varied denominations, whether they emerged from one of the four sources listed above or from a combination of several of them. We shall see that similar ethical maxims could be linked with different dogmatic principles. Also, the ethical compendia of the various denominations influenced each other mutually, and one finds in them great similarities, in spite of the well-known fact that the conduct of life they advocate is very different. It would almost seem as though the best way forward would be to ignore the doctrinal documentation as well as the ethical theory, and to restrict ourselves to the practical moral behavior, as far as this can be established.
This, however, would be a mistake. The dogmatic roots of ascetic morality died (admittedly only after terrible struggles). But the original attachment to those dogmas left clear traces in later “undogmatic” ethics, and only a knowledge of the original thinking can enable us to understand how th
at morality was connected to the idea of the beyond, an idea which absolutely dominated the minds of the most thoughtful people of that time. Without the power of this idea, which towered above all else, no moral renewal seriously affecting practical life could have been put into effect. For we are not primarily concerned with what was taught in ethical compendia of the period—however much practical importance this too had through the influence of Church discipline, pastoral care and preaching; the main thing is to discover the psychological drives [Antriebe] which led people to behave in a certain way and held them firmly in this path. These drives usually originated from purely religious ideas. In that era, people pondered apparently abstract dogmas in a manner that only becomes comprehensible if we understand the connection of these dogmas with practical religious interests. It is inevitable that we must pursue a path through certain dogmatic considerations [65] that must seem as tedious to the nontheological reader as they must seem hasty and superficial to the theological scholar. At the same time, we can, of course, only proceed in such a way that we present the religious ideas in a logically consistent form, compiled as an “ideal type,” which rarely existed in historical reality. For precisely because of the impossibility of drawing clear boundaries in historical reality, we can only hope to arrive at the specific effects of these ideas by examining their most logically consistent form.
[CALVINISM]
Calvinism [66] was the faith [67] in the name of which the great political and cultural battles were fought in the countries in which capitalism was most highly developed (the Netherlands, England, and sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France). What was regarded then and in general is still regarded today as its most characteristic dogma is the doctrine of election by grace.3 It has been debated whether this is “the most essential” dogma of the Reformed Church or an “adjunct.” Judgments about whether a historical phenomenon is “essential” may, on the one hand, be judgments of value or faith. This is the case if what concerns us is what is “interesting” or what is of permanent “value” about it. Alternatively, we may be concerned with the causal significance of a phenomenon, arising from its influence on other historical processes: in this case it is a question of judgments of historical imputation that are at stake.