13. What I understand by this may be shown by the example of the proclamation addressed by Cromwell to the Irish in 1650, with which he opened his war against them and which formed his reply to the manifestos of the Irish (Catholic) clergy of Clonmacnoise of December 4 and 13, 1649. The most important sentences follow: "Englishmen had good inheritances (namely 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 nation's 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 no't."
This proclamation, which is suggestive of articles in the English Press at the time of the Boer War, is not characteristic, because the capitalistic interests of Englishmen are held to be the justification of the war. That argument could, of course, have just as well been made use of, for instance, in a quarrel between Venice and Genoa over their respective spheres of influence in the Orient (which, in spite of my pointing it out here, Brentano, op. cit., p. 142, strangely enough holds against me). On the contrary, what is interesting in the document is that Cromwell, with the deepest personal conviction, as everyone who knows his character will agree, bases the moral justification of the subjection of the Irish, in calling God to witness, on the fact that English capital has taught the Irish to work. (The proclamation is in Carlyle, and is also reprinted and analysed in Gardiner, History of the Comynonu'ealth, I, pp. 163 f.)
213 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 14. This is not the place to follow the subject farther. Gampare the authors cited in Note 16 below.
15. Compare the remarks in Jiiiicher's fine book, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, II, pp. 108, 636 f.
16. With what follows, compare above all the discussion in Eger, op. cit. Also Schneckenburger's fine work, which is even to-day not yet out of date {Vergleichende Darstellung der lutherischeji und refor- mierten Lehrhegriffe, Grüder, Stuttgart, 1855). Luthardt's Ethik Luthers, p. 84 of the first edition, the only one to which I have had access, gives no real picture of the development. Further compare Seeberg, Dogmengeschichte, II, pp. 262 ff. The article on Beruf in the Realenzyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche is valueless. Instead of a scientific analysis of the conception and its origin, it contains all sorts of rather sentimental observations on all possible subjects, such as the position of women, etc. Of the economic literature on Luther, I refer here only to Schmoller's studies ("Geschichte der Nationalökönomischen Ansichten in Deutschland während der Reformationszeit", Zeitschrift f. Staatswiss., XVI, i860); Wiskemann's prize essay (1861); and the study of Frank G. Ward ("Darstellung und Würdigung von Luthers Ansichten vom Staat und seinen wirtschaftlichen Aufgaben", Conrads Abhandlimgai, XXI, Jena, 1898). The literature on Luther in commemoration of the anniversary of the Reformation, part of which is excellent, has, so far as I can see, made no definite contribution to this particular problem. On the social ethics of Luther (and the Lutherans) compare, of course, the relevant parts of Troeltsch's Soziallehren.
17. Analysis of the Seventh Chapter of the First Epistle to the Corin- thians, 1523, Erlangen edition, LI, p. i. Here Luther still interprets the idea of the freedom of every calling before God in the sense of this passage, so as to emphasize (i) that certain human institutions should be repudiated (monastic vows, the prohibition of mixed marriages, etc.), (2) that the fulfillment of traditional worldly duties to one's neighbour (in itself indifferent before God) is turned into a commandment of brotherly love. In fact this characteristic reasoning (for instance pp. 55,. 56) fundamentally concerns the question of the dualism of the lex natura in its relations vi^ith divine justice.
18. Compare the passage from Von Kaufhandlung und Wucher, which Sombart rightly use? as a motto for his treatment of the handicraft -spirit (= traditionalism): "Darum musst 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, dass du solcher Arbeit und Mühe Lohn davon hasst." The principle is for- mulated in a thoroughly Thomistic spirit.
19. As early as the letter to H. von Sternberg of 1530, in which he dedicates the Exigesis of the 117th Psalm to him, the estate of the 214 Notes lower nobility appears to him, in spite of its moral degradation, as ordained of God (Erlangen edition, XL, pp. 282 ff.)- The decisive influence of the Münzer disturbances in developing this view-point can clearly be seen in the letter (p. 282). Compare also Eger, op. cit., p. 150.
20. Also in the analysis of the 1 1 ith Psalm, verses 5 and 6 (Erlangen edition, XL, pp. 215-16), written in 1530, the starting-point is the polemics against withdrawal from the world into monasteries. But in this case the lex naturce (as distinct from positive law made by the Emperor and the Jurists) is directly identical with divine justice. It is God's ordinance, and includes especially the division of the people into classes (p. 215). The equal value of the classes is emphasized, but only in the sight of God.
21. As taught especially in the works Von Konzilien und Kirchen (1539) and Kurzer Bekenntnis vom heiligen Sakrament (1545).
22. How far in the background of Luther's thought was the most important idea of proof of the Christian in his calling and his worldly conduct, which dominated Calvinism, is shown by this passage from Von Konzilien und Kirchen (1539, Erlangen edition, XXV, p. 376): "Besides these seven principal signs there are more superficial ones by which the holy Christian Church can be known. If we are not unchaste nor drunkards, proud, insolent, nor extravagant, but chaste, modest, and temperate." According to Luther these signs are not so infallible as the others (purity of doctrine, prayer, etc.). "Because certain of the heathen have borne themselves so and sometimes even appeared holier than Christians." Calvin's personal position was, as we shall see, not very different, but that was not true of Puritanism. In any case, for Luther the Christian serves God only in vocatione, not per vocationem (Eger, pp. 117 ff.). Of the idea of proof, on the other hand (more, however, in its Pietistic than its Calvinistic form), there are at least isolated suggestions in the German mystics (see for instance in Seeberg, Dogmengeschichte, p. 195, the passage from Suso, as well as those from Tauler quoted above), even though it was understood only in a psychological sense.
23. His final position is well expressed in some parts of the exegesis of Genesis (in the op. lat. exeget. edited by Elsperger).
Vol. IV, p. 109: "Neque haec fuit levis tentatio, intentum esse suae vocationi et de aliis non esse curiosum...Paucissimi sunt, qui sua sorte vivant contenti...(p. iii). 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." In effect that is thoroughly in accordance with Thomas Aquinas 's formulation of traditionalism (Secunda secundce, Quest. 118, Art. i): "Unde necesse est, quod bonum hominis circa ea consistat in quadam mensura, dum scilicet homo...quaerit habere exteriores divitas, prout sunt necessariae ad vitam ejus secundum suam conditionem. Et ideo in excessu hujus mensurae The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism consistit peccatum, dum scilicet aliquis oupra debitum modum vult eas vel acquirere vel retinere, quod pertinet ad avaritiam." The sinfulness of the pursuit of acquisition beyond the point set by the needs of one's station in life is based by Thomas on the lex natura as revealed by the purpose (ratio) of external goods; by Luther, on the other hand, on God's will. On the relation of faith and the calling in Luther see also Vol. VII, p. 225: "...quando es fidelis, turn 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 Deo etiam in impiis sedulitatem et industriam in officio [This activity in practical life is a virtue lege natura] sed obstat incredulitas et vana gloria, ne possint opera sua referre ad gloriam Dei [reminiscent of Calvinistic w^ays of speaking]...Merentur igitur etiam impiorum bona opera in hac quidem vita praemia sua [as distinct from Augus- tine's 'vitia specie virtutum palliata'] sed non numerantur, non coUiguntur in altero."
24. In the Kirchenpostille it runs (Erlangen edition, X, pp. 233, 235-6): "Everyone is called to some calling." He should wait for this call (on p. 236 it even becomes command) and serve God in it. God takes pleasure not in man's achievements but in his obedience in this respect.
25. This explains why, in contrast to what has been said above about the effects of Pietism on women workers, modern business men sometimes maintain that strict Lutheran domestic workers to-day often, for instance in Westphalia, think very largely in tradi- tional terms. Even without going over to the factory system, and in spite of the temptation of higher earnings, they resist changes in methods of work, and in explanation maintain that in the next world such trifles won't matter anyway. It is evident that the mere fact of Church membership and belief is not in itself of essential significance for conduct as a whole. It has been much more concrete religious values and ideals which have influenced the development of capitalism in its early stages and, to a lesser extent, still do.
26. Compare Tauler, Basle edition, BL, pp. 161 fif.
27. Compare the peculiarly emotional sermon of Tauler referred to above, and the following one, 17, 18, verse 20.
28. Since this is the sole purpose of these present remarks on Luther, I have limited them to a brief preliminary sketch, which would, of course, be wholly inadequate as an appraisal of Luther's influence as a whole.
29. One who shared the philosophy of history of the Levellers would be in the fortunate position of being able to attribute this in turn to racial differences. They believed themselves to be the defenders of the Anglo-Saxon birthright, against the descendants of William the Conqueror and the Normans. It is astonishing enough that it 216 Notes has not yet occurred to anyone to maintain that the plebeian Round- heads were round-headed in the anthropometric sense!
30. Especially the English national pride, a result of Magna Charta and the great wars. The saying, so typical to-day, "She looks like an English girl" on seeing any pretty foreign girl, is reported as early as the fifteenth century.
31. These differences have, of course, persisted in England as well. Especially the Squirearchy has remained the centre of "merrie old England" down to the present day, and the whole period since the Reformation may be looked upon as a struggle of the two elements in English society. In this point I agree with M. J. Bonn's remarks (in the Frankfurter Zeitung) on the excellent study of v. Schulze- Gaevernitz on British Imperialism. Compare H. Levy in the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, 46, 3.
32. In spite of this and the following remarks, which in my opinion are clear enough, and have never been changed, I have again and again been accused of this.
CHAPTER IV 1. Zwinglianism we do not discuss separately, since after a short lease of power it rapidly lost in importance. Arminianism, the dog- matic peculiarity of which consisted in the repudiation of the doctrine of predestination in its strict form, and which also repudiated worldly asceticism, was organized as a sect only in Holland (and the United States). In this chapter it is without interest to us, or has only the negative interest of having been the religion of the merchant patricians in Holland (see below). In dogma it resembled the Anglican Church and most of the Methodist denominations. Its Erastian position (i.e. upholding the sovereignty of the State even in Church matters) was, however, common to all the authorities with purely political interests: the Long Parliament in England, Elizabeth, the Dutch States-General, and, above all, Oldenbamereldt.
2. On the development of the concept of Puritanism see, above all, Sanford, Studies and Reflections of the Great Rebellion, p. 65 f. When we use the expression it is always in the sense which it took on in the popular speech of the seventeenth century, to mean the ascetically inclined religious movements in Holland and England without distinction of Church organization or dogma, thus including Inde- pendents, Congregationalists, Baptists, Mennonites, and Quakers.
3. This has been badly misunderstood in the discussion of these questions. Especially Sombart, but also Brentano, continually cite the ethical writers (mostly those of whom they have heard through me) as codifications of rules of conduct without ever asking which of them were supported by psychologically effective religious sanctions.
Q 2^7 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 4. I hardly need to emphasize that this sketch, so far as it is con- cerned solely with the field of dogma, falls back everywhere on the formulations of the literature of the history of the Church and of doctrine. It makes no claim whatever to originality. Naturally I have attempted, so far as possible, to acquaint myself with the sources for the history of the Reformation. But to ignore in the process the intensive and acute theological research of many decades, instead of, as is quite indispensable, allowing oneself to be led from it to the sources, would have been presumption indeed. I must hope that the necessary brevity of the sketch has not led to incorrect formulations, and that I have at least avoided important misunderstandings of fact. The discussion contributes something new. for those familiar with theological literature only in the sense that the whole is, of course, considered from the point of view of our problem. For that reason many of the most important points, for instance the rational character of this asceticism and its significance for modern life, have naturally not been emphasized by theological writers.
This aspect, and in general the sociological side, has, since the appearance of this study, been systematically studied in the work of E. Troeltsch, mentioned above, whose Gerhard und Mclancthon, as well as numerous reviews in the Gott. Gel. Anz., contained several preliminary studies to his great work. For reasons of space the references have not included everything which has been used, but for the most part only those works which that part of the text follows, or which are directly relevant to it. These are often older authors, where our problems have seemed closer to them. The insufficient pecuniary resources of German libraries have meant that in the provinces the most important source materials or studies could only be had from Berlin or other large libraries on loan for very short periods. This is the case with Voet, Baxter, Tyermans, Wesley, all the Methodist, Baptist, and Quaker authors, and many others of the earlier writers not contained in the Corpus Reformatorum. For any thorough study the use of English and American libraries is almost indispensable. But for the following sketch it was necessary (and possible) to be content with material available in Germany. In America recently the characteristic tendency to deny their own sectarian origins has led many university libraries to provide little or nothing new of that sort of literature. It is an aspect of the general tendency to the secularization of American life which will in a short time have dissolved the traditional national character and changed the significance of many of the fundamental institutions of the country completely and finally. It is now necessary to fall back on the small orthodox sectarian colleges.
5. On Calvin and Calvinism, besides the fundamental work of Kampschulte, the best source of information is the discussion of Erick Marcks (in his Coligny). Campbell, The Puritans in Holland, 21S Notes England, and America (2 vols.), is not always critical and unprejudiced. A strongly partisan anti-Calvinistic study is Pierson, Studien over Johan Calvijn. For the development in Holland compare, besides Motley, the Dutch classics, especially Groen van Prinsterer, Geschie- denis v.h. Vaderland; La Hollande et Vinfluence de Calvin (1864); Le parti anti-rdvoliitionnaire et confessionnel dans I'dglise des P.B. (i860) (for modern Holland); further, above all, Fruin's Tien jar en mit den tachtigjarigen oorlog, and especially Naber, Calvinist of Libertijnsch. Also W. J. F. Nuyens, Gesch. der kerkel. an pol. geschillen in de Rep. d. Ver. Prov. (Amsterdam, 1886); A. Köhler, Die Niederl. ref. Kirche (Erlangen, 1856), for the nineteenth century. For France, besides Polenz, now Baird, Rise of the Huguenots. For England, besides Carlyle, Macaulay, Masson, and, last but not least, Ranke, above all, now the various works of Gardiner and Firth. Further, Taylor, A Retrospect of the Religious Life in England (1854), and the excellent book of Weingarten, Die englischen Revolutionskirchen. Then the article on the English Moralists by E. Troeltsch in the Realetizy- klopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, third edition, and of course his Soziallehren. Also E. Bernstein's excellent essay in the Geschichte des Sozialismus (Stuttgart, 1895, I, p. 50 ff.). The best bibliography (over seven thousand titles) is in Dexter, Congregational- ism of the Last Three Hundred Years (principally, though not exclu- sively, questions of Church organization). The book is very much better than Price {History of Nonconformism), Skeats, and others. For Scotland see, among others. Sack, Die Kirche von Schottland (1844), and the literature on John Knox. For the American colonies the outstanding work is Doyle, The English in America. Further, Daniel Wait Howe, The Puritan Republic; J. Brown, The Pilgrim Fathers of New England and their Puritan Successors (third edition, Revell). Further references will be given later.
For the differences of doctrine the following presentation is especially indebted to Schneckenburger's lectures cited above. Ritschl's fundamental work. Die christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versöhnung (references to Vol. HI of third edition), in its mixture of historical method with judgments of value, shows the marked pecu- liarities of the author, who with all his fine acuteness of logic does not always give the reader the certainty of objectivity. Where, for instance, he differs from Schneckenburger's interpretation I am often doubtful of his correctness, however little I presume to have an opinion of my own. Further, what he selects out of the great variety of religious ideas and feelings as the Lutheran doctrine often seems to be determined by his own preconceptions. It is what Ritschl himself conceives to be of permanent value in Lutheranism. It is Lutheranism as Ritschl would have had it, not always as it was. That the works of Karl Müller, Seeberg, and others have ever>'^vhere been made use of it is unnecessary to mention particularly. If in 219 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism the following I have condemned the reader as well as myself to the penitence of a malignant growth of footnotes, it has been done in order to give especially the non-theological reader an opportunity to check up the validity of this sketch by the suggestion of related lines of thought.
6. In the following discussion we are not primarily interested in the origin, antecedents, or history of these ascetic movements, but take their doctrines as given in a state of full development.
7. For the following discussion I may here say definitely that we are not studying the personal views of Calvin, but Calvinism, and that in the form to which it had evolved by the end of the sixteenth and in the seventeenth centuries in the great areas where it had a decisive influence and which were at the same time the home of capitalistic culture. For the present, Germany is neglected entirely, since pure Calvinism never dominated large areas here. Reformed is, of course, by no means identical with Calvinistic.
8. Even the Declaration agreed upon between the University of Cambridge and the Archbishop of Canterbury on the 17th Article of the Anglican Confession, the so-called Lambeth Article of 1595, which (contrary to the official version) expressly held that there was also predestination to eternal death, was not ratified by the Queen. The Radicals (as in Hanserd Ktiolly's Cotifesston) laid special emphasis on the express predestination to death (not only the admission of damnation, as the milder doctrine would have it).
9. Westminster Confession, fifth official edition, London, 1717. Compare the Savoy and the (American) Hanserd KnoUy's Declarations. On predestination and the Huguenots see, among others, Polenz, I. pp. 545 ff- I. pp. 545 ff- 10. On Milton's theology see the essay of Eibach in the Theol. Studieti und Kritiken, 1879. Macaulay's essay on it, on the occasion of Sumner's translation of the Doctrina Christiana, rediscovered in 1823 (Tauchnitz edition, 185, pp. i ff.), is superficial. For more detail see the somewhat too schematic six-volume English work of Masson, and the German biography of Milton by Stern which rests upon it. Milton early began to grow away from the doctrine of pre- destination in the form of the double decree, and reached a wholly free Christianity in his old age. In his freedom from the tendencies of his own time he may in a certain sense be compared to Sebastian Franck. Only Milton was a practical and positive person, Franck predominantly critical. Milton is a Puritan only in the broader sense of the rational organization of his life in the world in accordance with the divine will, which formed the permanent inheritance of later times from Calvinism. Franck could be called a Puritan in much the same sense. Both, as isolated figures, must remain outside our investigation.
11. "Hie est fides summus gradus; credere Deum esse clementum, 220 Notes qui tarn paucos salvat, justum, qui sua voluntate nos damnabiles facit", is the. text of the famous passage in De servo arbitrio.
12. The truth is that both Luther and Calvin believed funda- mentally in a double God (see Ritschl's remarks in Geschichte des Pietismus and Kostlin, Gott in Realenzyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, third edition), the gracious and kindly Father of the New Testament, who dominates the first books of the Institutio Christiana, and behind him the Deus absconditus as an arbitrary despot. For Luther, the God of the New Testament kept the upper hand, because he avoided reflection on metaphysical questions as useless and dangerous, while for Calvin the idea of a transcendental God won out. In the popular development of Calvinism, it is true, this idea could not be maintained, but what took his place was not the Heavenly Father of the New Testament but the Jehovah of the Old.
13. Compare on the following: Scheibe, Calvins Prädestinations- lehre (Halle, 1897). On Calvinistic theology in general, Heppe, Dogmatik der evangelisch-reformierten Kirche (Elberfeld, 1861).
14. Corpus Reformator urn, LXXVH, pp. 186 ff.
15. The preceding exposition of the Calvinistic doctrine can be found in much the same form as here given, for instance in Hoorn- beek's Theologia practica (Utrecht, 1663), L. H, c. i; de predesti- natione, the section stands characteristically directly under the heading De Deo. The Biblical foundation for it is principally the first chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians. It is unnecessary for us here to analyse the various inconsistent attempts to combine with the predestination and providence of God the responsibility and free will of the individual. They began as early as in Augustine's first attempt to develop the doctrine.
16. "The deepest community (with God) is found not in institu- tions or corporations or churches, but in the secrets of a solitary heart", as Dowden puts the essential point in his fine book Puritan and Anglican(p. 234). This deep spiritual loneliness of the individual applied as well to the Jansenists of Port Royal, who were also predestinationists.
17. "Contra qui huiusmodi ccetum [namely a Church which main- tains a pure doctrine, sacraments, and Church discipline] contemnunt...salutis suae certi esse non possunt; et qui in illo contemtu perseverat electus non est." Olevian, De subst. feed., p. 222.
18. "It is said that God sent His Son to save the human race, but that was not His purpose. He only wished to help a few out of their degradation — and I say unto you that God died only for the elect" (sermon held in 1609 at Broek, near Rogge, Wtenbogaert, II, p. 9. Compare Nuyens, op. cit., II, p. 232). The explanation of the role of Christ is also confused in Hanserd Knolly's Confession. It is everywhere assumed that God did not need His instrumentality.
19. Entzauberung der Welt. On this process see the other essays in my Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen. The peculiar position of 221 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism the old Hebrew ethic, as compared with the closely related ethics of Egypt and Babylon, and its development after the time of the prophets, rested, as is shown there, entirely on this fundamental fact, the rejection of sacramental magic as a road to salvation. (This process is for Weber one of the most important aspects of the broader process of rationalization, in which he sums up his philosophy of history. See various parts of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft and H. Grab, Der Begriff des Rationalen hei Max Weber. — Translator's Note.)
20. Similarly the most consistent doctrine held that baptism was required by positive ordinance, but was not necessary to salvation. For that reason the strictly Puritan Scotch and English Independents were able to maintain the principle that children of obvious reprobates should not be baptized (for instance, children of drunkards). An adult who desired to be baptized, but was not yet ripe for the com- munion, the Synod of Edam of 1586 (Art. 32, i) recommended should be baptized only if his conduct were blameless, and he should have placed his desires sonder superstitie.
21. This negative attitude toward all sensuous culture is, as Dow- den, op. cit., shows, a very fundamental element of Puritanism.
22. The expression individualism includes the most heterogeneous things imaginable. What is here understood by it will, I hope, be clear from the following discussion. In another sense of the word, Lutheranism has been called individualistic, because it does not attempt any ascetic regulation of life. In yet another quite different sense the word is used, for example, by Dietrich Schäfer when in his study, "Zvir Beurteilung des Wormser Konkordats", Abh. d. Berl. Akad. (1905), he calls the Middle Ages the era of pronounced individuality because, for the events relevant for the historian, irrational factors then had a significance which they do not possess to-day. He is right, but so perhaps are also those whom he attacks in his remarks, for they mean something quite different, when they speak of individuality and individualism. Jacob Burchhardt's brilliant ideas are to-day at least partly out of date, and a thorough analysis of these concepts in historical terms would at the present time be highly valuable to science. Quite the opposite is, of course, true when the play impulse causes certain historians to define the concept in such a way as to enable them to use it as a label for any epoch of history they please.