by Max Weber
What is lacking in ascetic Protestantism is simply (and this is certainly no accident!) the institution of confession, which affords relief to the Catholic from the pressure of the emotional [pathetischen] questioning of his individual qualification. Here too, as elsewhere, the problem of whether he was among the qualified ones was not answered for the Protestant in the medieval Catholic fashion by reckoning guilt and merit and weighing them up against each other, resulting in a plus or minus that was more or less acceptable, and which could then be complemented by the use of the Church’s means of grace. For the Protestant (and, as I have shown, especially the ascetic Protestant), the question was answered by a strict either-or of the entire personality, as it manifested itself in the totality of the ethical conduct of life. Here, for the first time, once again infinitely more starkly on the ground of ascetic Protestantism than on the ground of Lutheranism (as I have also justified in detail), the individual is left to face his God with nothing to rely on but himself and his own state of grace, which can only be evidenced by the whole conduct of his life.
On the other hand, again, his external pattern of life in this situation is very much more subject to control by his fellows: by the members of the congregation. In Catholicism and also in Lutheranism, it is ultimately only the representative of the “office” who has to agree between himself and the individual communicant as to whether the latter is ready to partake of the Lord’s Supper. In Calvinism, every individual member of the entire congregation bears the responsibility for ensuring that the “glory of God”—to which end, after all, the whole life of society is unambiguously directed with the kind of force that is foreign to the other great churches—is not defiled by the participation of one who evidently bears the signs of damnation upon him. Scarcely a generation ago, it was the laypeople who created the Kuyper schism9 (Kuyper was a lay elder) by demanding that confirmands who in their opinion were not qualified, although they had been examined by external preachers, be turned away from the Communion. Ultimately, what lay behind this was a protest in principle against intervention in this question, one which directly affected every individual member of the congregation, by any authority whatever that did not belong to a concrete community of the Lord’s Supper [Abendmahlsgemeinschaft] with control over the correct management of its own affairs.
Probably the clearest example of the powerful social significance of these thought processes emerged in the churches of New England, where the demand for the ecclesia pura and for the purity, in particular, of the congregation of the Lord’s Supper provoked real “class distinctions” in the truest sense, and brought about struggles and compromises concerning the position of those who claimed to be Christians, including, among other things, their right to bring their children to baptism and to represent them there.
When one looks at the church orders of Protestantism, follows their development and practical implementation (as far as one can), and considers the consequences of all this, what first strikes one is the way in which quite large parts of the moral regulation of life had been taken over by the churches. In the Carolingian period these powers were exercised by the Sendgericht,10 in the late Middle Ages frequently by the cities, and in the period of the territorial states by the royal police. The extent to which the churches had done this varied, of course, and on the whole it occurred less strongly in the Lutheran territories than in the Calvinist territories, where the particular subjection to Church discipline on acceptance into the congregation, as I already indicated previously, actually became more significant after Calvin.
However—as I have already emphasized—far stronger and more effective still was that kind of ethical “training” that the ascetic sects imposed on their members. (Remnants of this can still be found today.) I have given an account of some of this on the basis of recent observations in the United States in my essay in Christliche Welt. The present secularization of American life and the tremendous immigration of heterogeneous elements are rapidly sweeping such remnants away, and the ruthless “fishing for souls” of the competing denominations further weakens the intensity of their educational achievement. Nevertheless, even now the observer can scarcely fail to see the remnants of these once so effective phenomena with his own eyes. I refer the reader to what I said in the essay on the function of the sects in economic life (one which today is gradually being taken over by all kinds of purely secular organizations). I should like to refer in particular, for example (rather than cite numerous similar experiences), to the case of the young man who (so I was informed) was motivated to join a Baptist congregation in North Carolina by his intention to open a bank. On inquiring further I was informed that he was not so concerned about attracting clients from the Baptist community, but rather those who were not sect members in that area (the overwhelming majority). The reason was that anyone who wished to be admitted to baptism had to submit, as part of his “catechismal instruction” to quite astonishingly systematic questioning from the congregation concerning his conduct (frequenting the inn? ever drunk? ever play cards? ever led an “unclean life”? wasteful? checks not paid punctually? other debts? any traces whatever of unreliability in business? etc., etc.), with inquiries being made at the locations of all his previous residences. If he were received into membership, then his creditworthiness and his business qualification were thereby guaranteed to such an extent that he could beat any competitor who did not enjoy such legitimation, especially since (as with all sects) exclusion on grounds of bad behavior would mean social excommunication. [20]
We find the same development as much as two centuries ago. Furthermore, for example, the Quakers have always prided themselves on having created the system of “fixed prices,” which is so important for capitalism, to replace Oriental-style bargaining. In fact, historical investigation shows that two hundred years ago the flourishing of the Quaker retail businesses was due to the confidence customers felt that this principle would be adhered to, a confidence greater than any medieval or modern pricing system was able to produce. The Quaker community also intervened if anyone started a business without having the necessary capital or knowledge to run it. Further examples could be given. And in the literature of all these sects, quite soon after their founding, one can find rejoicing at the fact that the Lord was visibly blessing them because the “children of the world” brought their money (as deposit, as investment, or whatever) to them rather than to those who shared the same religion, or shared their lack of one, because in the sects they were more confident of finding the personal ethical guarantees they required. For similar examples I refer the reader to that sketch, and would only make the following remarks. Everyone knows that right up until recent decades (and the same attitude is still sometimes found today) the Yankee of more or less the old school, especially the businessman, found it unacceptable that a man might not belong to any “denomination” at all (he didn’t particularly mind which one he belonged to: he was absolutely “tolerant” in this respect). He found a religious outlaw of this kind to be suspect both socially and in business, because he was not ethically “legitimated.” A similar phenomenon existed in Scotland and in middle-class [bürgerlich] English circles (and still persists here and there, as the tourist could be reminded, as recently as fifteen years ago, especially on Sundays). Today, the middle-ranking American businessman has withdrawn from this once-overpowering pressure for religious legitimation and instead has at his disposal any number of other organizations, of which more and more are being formed all the time. Legitimation now arises from having been voted into membership and therefore having the qualities of a “gentleman.” He often still wears the organization’s “badge” in his buttonhole. (The attentive observer will see these badges, which are reminiscent of the rosettes of the Legion of Honor, in huge numbers.)
As long as the genuine Yankee spirit reigned, and wherever it reigned, American democracy, even without its trusts and trade unions, was never just a collection of isolated individuals thrown together like a heap of sa
nd, but was to a high degree a tangle of exclusive associations, whose prototype was the sect, and which cultivated those qualities that make up the business gentleman needed by capitalism, demanding such qualities as a self-evident condition of membership. Of course, someone in the situation of Mr. Pierpont Morgan has no need of this legitimation to establish his own economic standing. And in other ways, too, things look very different today. But the penetration of the whole of life with that specific “spirit” demanded by these associations was an extremely important condition enabling modern capitalism to “take root,” that is, to find a “style of life” adequate to it in the broad stratum of the bourgeois [bürgerlich] middle classes, and finally in the masses who had to adapt to its mechanism. Modern capitalism thereby succeeded in gaining control of life in the way that we know it has done.
Understandably, historians of Rachfahl’s type have no notion of the degree of training that was necessary to make this possible. [21] If, however, anyone should ask himself the question (a “natural” one for those of Rachfahl’s ilk who pride themselves on their common sense) of whether the propensity of this form of religious training to produce businesspeople, indeed this whole complex relationship between business and religion, was not simply the result of these religious communities having developed in a “milieu” that was already capitalist, then I ask: Why did the Catholic Church not develop these combinations and a type of training similarly oriented toward capitalism? Yet it did not do so in the great cities (Zentren) of the Middle Ages, like Florence, which, heaven knows, were far more “developed” in a capitalist sense than, for example, the still thinly populated farming region in the west of North Carolina, about which I have spoken, or the regions of the American colonies which were still essentially based on a barter economy, in which as early as two hundred years previously the same development occurred. And why not Luther-anism?
There was simply a marriage between a strand of psychological elements, which originated from quite specific moral and religious roots, and capitalist opportunities for development. It is true, on the other hand, that in areas of mixed religion the style of life of the ascetic communities that was cultivated with such immense energy, despite all the violent clashes [22], nevertheless “rubbed off on” the style of life of rival denominations from the start. This occurred increasingly as economic life became evermore permeated with the capitalist spirit. It did so at a very early stage for Dutch and American Lutheranism, and also for American Catholicism (while in Germany, of course, the older Pietism had the same effect on Lutheranism there).
Naturally, this happened in such a way that en route to this “adaptation” [Angleichung], the differences were only reduced step by step, never completely obliterated. [23] However, all the evidence indicates that the Protestants among them almost always did adapt to the most consistent versions of Protestant asceticism (especially the Calvinist variety). For this reason, if for no other, mere statistics of the numbers of true Calvinists among, for example, the Protestant emigrants, would be no argument against the significance of those ascetic forms of life. Discussions currently in progress within Catholicism as to how one might appropriate the superior economic competence of the Protestants can be paralleled (in substance if not in form) in many of Spener’s remarks regarding the good progress made by the Quakers, and the same motive has, of course, always been effective, if unspoken, everywhere, and remains so in America to this day.
Finally—leaving aside the term “innerworldly asceticism” for the moment [24]—it may be asked whether I am justified in materially [sachlich] comparing the phenomenon I have defined by this term with Catholic monastic asceticism. In response, I could point to the fact that the medieval monastic literature of edification (Bonaventura, among others) is frequently quoted by the relevant Protestant writers on ethics, especially those from England, when those demands that I have called “ascetic” are being discussed. I prefer, however, to draw the following comparison. Monastic asceticism demands chastity. Protestant asceticism (in my sense of the word) demands chastity in marriage too, meaning the suppression of “desire” and the restriction of morally acceptable sexual intercourse to the rational “natural purpose” of procreation. And these regulations were no mere theorizing. We know of certain ascetic Protestant (Pietist, Moravian) rules of life in this area that today strike us as in some respects directly contrary to nature. Indeed, the way in which women were treated in general was profoundly influenced by a refusal to consider women as primar-ily sexual beings, by contrast with, for example, Luther’s unbroken attachment to the peasant outlook.
Monastic asceticism demands poverty, and we know the paradoxical result of this: the economic prosperity of the monasteries (the only exceptions being a few strictly spiritual orders [Denominationen], which were all treated by the popes as highly suspect). This prosperity was regarded everywhere as a consequence of God’s blessing and was in fact due partly to the endowments, but chiefly to their rational economy. As for Protestant asceticism, it condemns not only hedonistic “enjoyment” of one’s wealth, but also striving for it “as an end in itself.” I have already described the equally paradoxical result of this. Monastic asceticism demands independence from the “world” and condemns in particular naive enjoyment. The Protestant variety does precisely the same, and both converge in the means of “exercise” (for this is what the word “asceticism” means): strict allocation of time; labor; silence as a means of control of all the life of the instincts; furthermore detachment from all unduly strong ties to the creaturely (suspicion of excessively intense personal friendships, etc.); abstinence from pleasure as such, whether it be “sensual” (in the narrow sense), aesthetic, or literary in kind; abstinence, in short, from any use of the benefits of this life that could not be justified on rational, for example, hygienic, grounds.
I have reminded readers at length and in detail of the fact that in the Middle Ages the man who lived “methodically” for the specific reason of his “calling” was indeed the monk—and thus Sebastian Frank’s words perhaps show rather more understanding of these matters than my “critic.” With his customary fidelity to the truth [Loyalität], Rachfahl asserts that my scientific [wissenschaftlich] thesis “is based” on these words of Frank, even though in my rebuttal I spoke of them as an example of the opinion of contemporaries. What distinguishes rational Protestant asceticism (in my sense of the word) from monastic asceticism is, firstly, rejection of all irrational ascetic means, which, however, are similarly rejected or restricted by certain particularly important Catholic orders, specifically by the Jesuits; secondly, rejection of contemplation; and, thirdly and principally, the application of asceticism to the innerworldly sphere of family and (ascetically interpreted) calling. From this, all the aforementioned differences, as well as all others mentioned, naturally arise.
Yet if the “spirit” which reveals itself in the principles of monastic life should be judged not to be parallel to or to have, in its innermost essence, an affinity with that which is revealed in Protestant asceticism, then I do not know when one can ever speak of an “affinity.” I shall only mention in passing how strongly many Pietists lamented the disappearance of the monasteries. Nor do I intend to say much about the many instances of the creation of monastic-style organizations by these same Pietists. I should just like to remind the reader of what I said in my essays about the likes of Bunyan. Finally, inner tension and an inner affinity between both sides regarding the position of ascetic ideals in the total system of the religiously oriented life originate from the already mentioned source. What for the monks was important as the real basis for the expectation of salvation [Seligkeit] was important for ascetic Protestantism because it was regarded as an indication that they possessed it [Erkenntnisgrund] (not the only one, but probably one of the most important). And since even modern “methodologists” (especially in the sphere of historical method, as I have occasionally observed) cannot always distinguish between these two matters, it is scarcely surprisi
ng that Protestant “justification by works” [Werkheiligkeit] often appears identical with Catholic practice. However, the seeds of each have a different spiritual paternity, and, consequently, the fruits developed into a very different inner structure.
There is no space here to recapitulate the dogmatic basis of innerworldly asceticism. For this I must refer the reader to my essay, where I have also indicated, at least provisionally and in outline, that the question of whether that basis was formed by the Calvinist doctrine of predestination or the untheological dogma of the Baptist movement (even though the two were very similar) was not without relevance for the practical orientation of life. In this part of my work (the only one yet published), these differences, which were in many ways very tangible, inevitably had to take second place to what they had in common. There is no space to elaborate on this any further at this point. When, in my essays, I made an empirical investigation of the question of whether those fundamental matters of religious psychology really did have the specific effects for the practice of the conduct of life I claim for them, I must emphasize once again that I did not base this investigation on textbooks of dogma, or on theoretical treatises on ethics, but on quite different source material, namely, Baxter’s and Spener’s publications in particular, which are based on pastoral care, and especially on answers to questions on concrete practical problems put to them by those in their care. And these answers represent, to the degree that they reflect practical life, a type that approximately corresponds to the responsa of the Roman lawyers to questions on business and legal practice. Undoubtedly, the works of Baxter and Spener and their like also contain the casuistic speculations of their originators, and this applies to the Roman lawyers also. One could say the same of the Talmud, indeed the speculative content is incomparably greater here than it is in either of the two previous examples. It is, however, similar in that it is also linked directly to practical response material.