L^ poral and eternal fate. Quite realistically the Church recognized that man was not an absolutely clearly defined unity to be judged one way or the other, but that his moral life was normally subject to conflicting motives and his action contradictory. Of course, it required as an ideal a change of life in principle. But it weakened just this requirement (for the average) by one of its most important means of power and education, the sacrament of absolution, the function of which was connected with the deepest roots of the peculiarly Catholic religion. 116 The Religions Foundations of Worldly Asceticism ~^j The rationalization of the world, the eHmination of Änagic as a means to salvation,^^ the Catholics had not carried nearly so far as the Puritans (and before them the Jews) had done. To the -Catholic^^ the absolution of his Church was a compensation for his own imperfec- tion. The priest was a magician who performed the miracle of transubstantiation, and who held the key to eternal life in his hand. One could turn to him in grief and penitence. He dispensed atonement, hppe of grace, certainty of forgiveness, and thereby granted release from that tremendous tension to which the Calvinist was doomed by an inexorable fate, admitting of no mitigation. For him such friendly and human comforts did not exist. He could not hope to atone for hours of weakness or of thoughtlessness by increased good will at other times, as the Catholic or even the\ Lutheran could. The God of Calvinism demanded of his believers not single good works, but a life of good Ij works combined into a unified system.'^ There was no / place for the very human Catholic cycle of sin, repent-/ ance, atonement, release, followed by renewed _sin.' Nor was there any balance of merit for a life as a whole which could be adjusted by temporal punishments or the Churches' means of grace.
' The moral conduct of the average man was thus deprived of its planless and unsystematic character and subjected to a consistent method for conduct as a whole. It is no accident that the name of Methodists stuck to the participants in the last great revival of Puritan ideas in the eighteenth century just as the term Precisians, which has the same meaning, was applied to their spiritual ancestors in the seventeenth century. "^ 117 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism For only by a fundamental change in the whole meaning of life at every moment and in every action '^^ could the effects of grace transforming a man from the status naturce to the status gratice be proved.
The life of the saint was directed solely toward a transcendental end, salvation. But precisely for that reason it was thoroughly rationalized in this world and dominated entirely by the aim to add to the glory of God on earth. Never has the precept omnia in majorem dei gloriam been taken with more bitter seriousness.'^ Only a life guided by constant thought could achieve conquest over the state of nature. Descartes 's cogito ergo sum was taken over by the contemporary Puritans with this ethical reinterpretation.'^ It was this rational- ization which gave the Reformed faith its peculiar ascetic tendency, and is the basis both of its relation- ship'^^ to and its conflict with Catholicism. For naturally similar things were not unknown to Catholicism.
Without doubt Christian asceticism, both outwardly and in its inner meaning, contains many different things. But it has had a definitely rational character in its highest Occidental forms as early as the Middle Ages, and in several forms even in antiquity. The great historical significance of Western monasticism, as contrasted with that of the Orient, is based on this fact, not in all cases, but in its general type. In the rules of St. Benedict, still more with the monks of Cluny, again with the Cistercians, and most strongly the Jesuits, it has become emancipated from planless otherworldliness and irrational self-torture. It had developed a systematic method of rational conduct with the purpose of overcoming the status natura, to free ii8 The Religions Foundations of Worldly Asceticism man from the power of irrational impulses and his dependence on the world and on nature. It attempted to subject man to the supremacy of a purposeful will/' to bring his actions under constant self-control with a careful consideration of their ethical consequences. Thus it trained the monk, objectively, as a worker in the service of the kingdom of God, and thereby further, subjectively, assured the salvation of his soul. This active__sei£=control, which formed the end of the exercitia of St. Ignatius and of the rational monastic virtues everywhere,''^ was also the most important practical ideaLüf Puritanism. "^^ In the deep contempt with which the cool reserve of its adherents is con- trasted, in the reports of the trials of its martyrs, with the undisciplined blustering of the noble prelates and officials ^^ can be seen that respect for quiet self-con- trol which still distinguishes the best type of English or American gentleman to-day.^^ To put it in our terms ^^:, The Puritan, like every rational type of j asceticism, tried to enable a man to maintain and act '' upon his constant motives, especially those which it taught him itself, against the emotions. In this formal psychological sense of the term it tried to make him into a personality. Contrary to many popular ideas, the end of this asceticism was to be able to lead an alert, / intelligent life: Jthe most urgent task the destruction 6TN spontaneous, impulsive enjoyment, the most important / means was to bring order into the conduct of its ' adherents. All these important points are emphasized ', in the rules of Catholic monasticism as strongly ^^ as in the principles of conduct of the Calvinists.^* On this methodical control over the whole man rests the 119 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism enormous expansive power of both, especially the ability of Calvinism as against Lutheranism to defend the cause of Protestantism as the Church militant. ^^n the other hand, the difference of the Calvinistic /from the mediaeval asceticism is evident. It consisted in I the disappearance of the consilia evaiigelica and the accompanying transformation of asceticism to activity within the world. Ims not as though Catholicism had TCsTficted the methodical life to monastic cells. This was by no means the case either in theory or in practice. On the contrary, it has already been pointed out that, in spite of the greater ethical moderation of Catholicism, an ethically unsystematic life did not satisfy the highest ideals which it had set up even for the life of the layman.^^ The tertiary order of St. Francis was, for instance, a powerful attempt in the direction of an ascetic penetration of everyday life, and, as we know, by no means the only one. But, in fact, works like the Nachfolge Christi show, through the manner in which their strong influence was exerted, that the way of life preached in them was felt to be something higher than the everyday morality which sufficed as a minimum, and that this latter was not measured by such standards as Puritanism demanded. Moreover, the practical use made of certain institutions of the Church, above all of indulgences inevitably counteracted the tendencies, toward systematic worldly asceticism. For that reason it was not felt at the time of the Reformation to be merely an unessential abuse, but one of the most fundamental evils of the Church.
But the most important thing was the fact that the man who, par excellence, lived a rational life in the 1 20 \ The Keligioiis Foundations of Worldly Asceticism religious sense was, and remained, alone the monk, 'hus asceticism, the more strongly it gripped an individual, simply served to drive him farther away ifrom everyday life, because the holiest task was defin- itely to surpass all worldly morality.®^ Luther, who was not in any sense fulfilling any law of development, but acting upon his quite personal experience, which was, though at first somewhat uncertain in its practical consequences, later pushed farther by the political situation, had repudiated that tendency, and Calvinism simply took this over from him.^' Sebastian FranckA struck the central characteristic of this type of religion when he saw the signifix^ncfi-DfLhe^ Reformation in the fact that now every_Chnstian had to be a monk all his-- lifg^ The drain of asceticism from everyday worldly life had been stopped by a dam, and those passionately spiritual natures which had formerly supplied the highest type of monk were now forced to pursue their ascetic iHealg wjthin mnnHanp n^-nipptinn«^ But in the course of its development Calvinisi added something positive-to thisT— the- idea of- the \ necessity__o£4inmng— one's faitk-in worldly activity.^ l Therein it gave the broader ' groups of religiously / inclined people a positive incentive to asceticism. By^ founding its ethic in the doctrine of predestination, it substituted for the spiritual aristocracy of monks out-L_ side of and above the world the spiritual aristocracy of the predestined saints of God within the world.^^ It was an aristocracy which, with its character indelebilis, V^ was divided from the eternally damned remainder of humanity by a more impassable and in its invisibility niore terrifying gulf,^^ than separated the monk of the K 121 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism Middle Ages from the rest of the world about him, a gulf which penetrated all social relations with its sharp brutality. This consciousness of divine grace of the elect and holy was accompanied by an attitude toward the sin of one's neighbour, not of sympathetic under- standing based on consciousness of one's own weakness, but of hatred and contempt for him as an enemy of God bearing the.signs of eternal damnation. ^^ This sort of feeling was capable of such intensity that it sometimes resulted in the formation of sects. This was the case when, as in the Independent movement of the seventeenth century, the genuine Calvinist doctrine that the glory of God required the Church to bring the damned under the law, was outweighed by the con- viction that it was an insult to God if an unregenerate soul should be admitted to His house and partake in the sacraments, or even, as a minister, administer them.®^ Thus, as a consequence of the doctrine of proof, the Donatist idea of the Church appeared, as in the case of the Calvinistic Baptists. The full logical consequence of the demand for a pure Church, a community of those proved to be in a state of grace, was not often drawn by forming sects. Modifications in the constitution of the Church resulted from the attempt to separate regenerate from unregenerate Christians, those who were from those who were not prepared for the sacrament, to keep the government of the Church or some other privilege in the hands of the former, and only to ordain ministers of whom there was no question. ^^ The norm by which it could always measure itself, of which it was evidently in need, this asceticism 122 The Religions Foundations of Worldly Asceticism naturally found in the Bible. It is important to note that the well-known bibliocracy of the Calvinists held the moral precepts of the Old Testament, since it was fully as authentically revealed, on the same level of esteem as those of the New. It was only neces- sary that they should not obviously be applicable only to the historical circumstances of the Hebrews, or have been specifically denied by Christ. For the believer, the law was an ideal though never quite attainable norm^* while Luther, on the other hand, originally had prized freedom from subjugation to the law as a divine privilege of the believer. ^^ The influence of the God-fearing but perfectly unemotional wisdom of the Hebrews, which is expressed in the books most read by the Puritans, the Proverbs and the Psalms, can be j felt in their whole attitude toward life. In particular, / its rational suppression of the mystical, in fact the whole emotional side of religion, has rightly been attributed by Sanford^® to the influence of the Old Testament. But this Old Testament rationalism was as such essentially of a small bourgeois, traditionalistic type, and was mixed not only with the powerful pathos of the prophets, but also with elements which encouraged the development of a peculiarly emotional type of religion even in the Middle Ages.^' It was thus in the last analysis the peculiar, fundamentally ascetic, char- acter of Calvinism itself which made it select and assimilate those elements of Old Testament religion which suited it best.
Now that systematization of ethical conduct which the asceticism of Calvinistic Protestantism had in common with the rational forms of life in the Catholic 123 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism orders is expressed quite superficially in the way in which the conscientious Puritan continually super- vised^^ his own state of grace. To be sure, the religious account-books in which sins, temptations, and progress made in grace were entered or tabulated were common to both the most enthusiastic Reformed circles^^ and some parts of modern Catholicism (especially in France), above aU under the influence of the Jesuits. But in Catholicism it served the purpose of complete- ness of the confession, or gave the directeur de Vame a basis for his authoritarian guidance of the Christian (mostly female). The Reformed Christian, however, felt his own pulse with its aid. It is mentioned by all the moralists and theologians, while Benjamin Frank- lin's tabulated statistical book-keeping on 'his progress in the different virtues is a classic example. ^^^ On the other hand, the old mediaeval (even ancient) idea of God's book-keeping is carried by Bunyan to the characteristically tasteless extreme of comparing the relation of a sinner to his God with that of customer and shopkeeper. One who has once got into debt may well, by the product of all his virtuous acts, succeed in paying off the accumulated interest but never the principal. ^^^ As he observed his own conduct, the later Puritan also observed that of God and saw His finger in all the details of life. And, contrary to the strict doctrine of Calvin, he always knew why God took this or that measure. The process of sanctifying life could thus almost take on the character of a business enterp rise. ^^^ A thoroughgoing Christianization of the whole of life was the consequence of this methodical quality of 124 The Religious Foundations of Worldly Asceticism ethical conduct into which Calvinism as distinct from Lutheranism forced men. That this rationajitx__a[as-^ decisive in its influence on practical life must always be borne in mind in order rightly to understand the influence of Calvinism. On the one hand we can see that it took this element to exercise such an influence at all. But other faiths as well necessarily had a similar influence when their ethical motives were the same in this decisive point, the doctrine of proof. K-So-iar we haveconsidered only Calyinismj^ and have thus flSRumed therfnrtnne of nredestinatinn as the dogmatic background of the Puritan morality in the sense of melTiodically rationaliyH pthjc^WvynHiirt This could be done because the influence of thaTHogma in fact extended far beyond the single religious group which held in all respects strictly to Calvinistic prin- ciples, the Presbyterians. Not only the Independent Savoy Declaration of 1658, but also the Baptist Con- fession of Hanserd Knollyof 1689 contained it, and it had a place within Methodism. Although John Wesley, the great organizing genius of the movement, was a believer in the universality of Grace, one of the great agitators of the first generation of Methodists and their most consistent thinker, Whitefield, was an adherent of the doctrine. The same was true of the circle around Lady Huntingdon, which for a time had considerable influence. It was this doctrine in its magnificent con- sistency which, in the fateful epoch of the seventeenth century, upheld the belief of the militant defenders of the holy life that they were weapons in the hand of God, and executors of His providential will.^^^ More- over, it prevented a premature collapse into a purely 125 // The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism utilitarian doctrine of good works in this world which would never have been capable of motivating such tremendous sacrifices for non-rational ideal ends.
The combination of faith in absolutely valid norms with absolute determinism and the complete trans- cendentality of God was in its way a product of great genius. At the same time it was, in principle, very much more modern than the milder doctrine, making greater concessions to the feelings which subjected God to the moral law. Above all, we shall see again and again how fundamental is the idea of proof for our problem, Since its practical significance as a psycho- logical basis for rational morality could be studied in such purity in the doctrine of predestination, it was best to start there with the doctrine in its most con- sistent form. But it forms a recurring framework for the connection between faith and conduct in the denominations to be studied below. Within the Pro- testant movement the consequences which it inevitably had for the ascetic tendencies of the conduct of its first adherents form in principle the strongest antithesis to the relative moral helplessness of Lutheranism. The Lutheran gratia amissibilis, which could always be regained through penitent contrition evidently, in itself, contained no sanction for what is for us the most important result of ascetic Protestantism, a systematic rational ordering of the moral life as a whole.1^* The Lutheran faith thus left the spontaneous vitality of impulsive action and naive emotion more nearly un- changed. The motive to constant self-control and thus to a deliberate regulation of one's own life, which the gloomy doctrine of Calvinism gave, was lacking. A 126 The Religions Foundations of Worldly Asceticism religious genius like Luther could live in this atmo- sphere of openness and freedom without difficulty and, so long as his enthusiasm was powerful enough, without danger of falling back into the status naturalis. That 1^ simple, sensitive, and peculiarly emotional form of piety, which is the ornament of many of the highest types of Lutherans, like their free and spontaneous morality, finds few parallels in genuine Puritanism, but many more in the mild Anglicanism of such men as Hooker, Chillingsworth, etc. But for the everyday Lutheran, even the able one, nothing was more certain than that he was only temporarily, as long as the single confession or sermon affected him, raised above the status naturalis.
There was a great difference which was very striking to contemporaries between the moral standards of the courts of Reformed and of Lutheran princes, the latter often being degraded by drunkenness and vulgarity.^^^ Moreover, the helplessness of the Lutheran clergy, with their emphasis on faith alone, against the ascetic Baptist movement, is well known. The typical German quality often called good nature (Gemütlichkeit) or naturalness contrasts strongly', even in the facial expressions of people, with the effects of that thorough destruction of the spontaneity of the status naturalis in the Anglo-American atmosphere, which Germans are accustomed to judge unfavourably as narrowness, unfreeness, and inner constraint. But the differences of conduct, which are very striking, have clearly originated in the lesser degree of ascetic penetration of life in Lutheranism as distinguished from Calvinism. The antipathy of every spontaneous child of nature to 127 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism everything ascetic is expressed in those feeHngs. The fact is that Lutheranism, on account of its doctrine of gracejä-cked a psychological sanction of systematic conluct to compel the methodical rationalization of life.
This sanction, which conditions the ascetic character of religion, could doubtless in itself have been furnished by various different religious motives, as we shall soon see. The Calvinistic doctrine of predestination was only one of several possibilities. But nevertheless we have become convinced that in its way it had not only a quite unique consistency, but that its psychological effect was extraordinarily powerful. ^^^ In comparison with it the non-Calvinistic ascetic movements, con- sidered purely from the view-point of the religious motivation of asceticism, form an attenuation of the inner consistency and power of Calvinism.
But even in the actual historical development the situation was, for the most part, such that the Calvinistic form of asceticism was either imitated by the other ascetic movements or used as a source of inspiration or of CQmparison in the development of their divergent principles. Where, in spite of a different doctrinal basis, similar ascetic features have appeared, this has gener- ally been the result of Church organization. Of this we shall come to speak in another connection.^^^ B. Pietism Historically the doctrine of predestination is also the starting-point of the ascetic movement usually known as Pietism. In so far as the movement remained within the Reformed Church, it is almost impossible to draw 128 The Religious Foundations of Worldly Asceticism the line between Pietistic and non-Pietistic Calvinists.^^® Almost all the leading representatives of Puritanism are sometimes classed among the Pietists. It is even quite legitimate to look upon the whole connection between predestination and the doctrine of proof, with its fundamental interest in the attainment of the certitudo salutis as discussed above, as in itself a Pietistic develop- ment of Calvin's original doctrines. The occurrence of ascetic revivals within the Reformed Church was, especially in Holland, regularly accompanied by a regeneration of the doctrine of predestination which had been temporarily forgotten or not strictly held to. Hence for England it is not customary to use the term Pietism at alL^^^