by Max Weber
38) On the other hand, the Augsburg Confession only includes the concept in a partially developed form and only implicitly. Article XVI (see the edition by Kolde, p. 43) teaches: “For the Gospel . . . does not seek to overturn the secular government, police, and matrimony, but desires that all such things are kept as God’s order, and in such estates demonstrate Christian charity and right good works, each one according to his calling [nach seinem Beruf] (in Latin: et in talibus ordinationibus exercere caritatem, ibid., p. 42). This leads to the consequence that one must obey the authorities [Obrigkeit], showing that here “Beruf” is used to refer, at least primarily, to an objective order in the sense of “κλῆσις,” 1 Corinthians 7.20. And Article XXVII (in Kolde, p. 83) speaks of “Beruf” (Latin: in vocatione sua) only in connection with estates ordained by God: priest, authorities [Obrigkeit], princes, lords, etc., and even this only exists in German in the Konkordienbuch, while in the German princeps edition the phrase is missing.
Only in Article XXVI (Kolde, p. 81) is the word used with our modern meaning, or at least in a sense which embraces this meaning: “that mortification of the flesh shall not serve to earn grace, but to keep the body in a condition such that it does not hinder one from doing what one has been commanded to do, according to one’s calling (Latin: juxta vocationem suam).”
39) As the dictionaries show, and my colleagues Professors Braune and Hoops have most kindly confirmed, the word “Beruf” (Dutch: “beroep,” English: “calling,” Danish: “kald,” Swedish: “kallelse”) is not used in any of these languages in its modern secular sense prior to Luther’s translation. The Middle High German, Middle Low German, and Middle Dutch words with the same sound as “Beruf” all mean “Ruf” (call) in its modern German meaning. This meaning also includes in particular—in the late medieval period—the “Berufung” (Vokation), that is, the calling of a candidate to a spiritual benefice [Pfründe] by the one authorized to make the appointment—a special case which tends to be emphasized in the dictionaries of Scandinavian languages too. Luther also occasionally uses the word in this latter meaning. However, even though this special use of the word may have assisted in its change of meaning, the creation of the modern concept of “Beruf” derives linguistically from the translations of the Bible, and indeed the Protestant translations. It is only in Tauler (died 1361) that we find hints of the later sense, as we propose to mention later.
Luther translates two apparently quite distinct concepts as “Beruf.” Firstly, the Pauline “κλῆσις,” in the sense of the calling of God to eternal salvation. In this category belong: 1 Corinthians 1.26; Ephesians 1.18, 4.1, and 4.4; 2 Thessalonians 1.11; Hebrews 3.1; 2 Peter 1.10. All these cases relate to the purely religious concept of the calling [Berufung] which comes from God by means of the gospel preached by the apostle. The term “κλῆσις,” has nothing whatever to do with secular “callings” in the present-day sense. The German Bibles before Luther have “ruffunge” for this term (this is found in all the incunabula in the Heidelberg Library); these Bibles also use “von Gott gefordert” rather than “von Gott geruffet.”
Secondly, he translates—as previously mentioned—the words of Ecclesiasticus: “ὲν τῶ γω σον παλαιώῆιτι” and “καὶ μμενε τῶ πονω σου” as “beharre in deinem Beruf” (persevere in your calling) and “bleibe in deinem Beruf’ (remain in your calling), instead of “bleibe bei deiner Arbeit” (remain in your work). The later (authorized) Catholic Bible translations (e.g., the one by Fleischütz, Fulda, 1781) have simply followed him in this (as in the New Testament passages). As far as I can see, Luther’s translation of this passage is the first case when the word “Beruf” has been used in today’s purely secular sense. As already mentioned, as far as I am aware, the word did not exist previously in the German language in this sense and was not even used by the older Bible translators or preachers. The German Bibles before Luther use the word “Werk” in the passage from Ecclesiasticus. In his sermons, Berthold von Regensburg uses the word “Arbeit” where we speak of “Beruf.” Linguistic usage is therefore the same here as in the ancient languages. The first passage known to me where “Ruf” (admittedly not “Beruf”), as the translation of “κλῆσις,” is applied to purely secular work, is found in Tauler’s fine sermon on Ephesians 4 (works, Basel edition, f. 117 v.): Of peasants who “muck out”: they often conduct themselves better “if they follow their calling in a simple way, than clerical men who have no concern for their calling” [so sie folgen einfeltiglich irem Ruff denn die geistlichen Menschen, die auf ihren ruf nicht Acht haben]. The word “Ruf” in this sense has not entered the secular language. And although Luther’s linguistic usage (see Werke, Erlangen edition, vol. 51, p. 51) varies between “Ruf” and “Beruf,” direct influence by Tauler is by no means certain, although there is much in, for example, “Die Freiheit eines Christenmenschen” that is reminiscent of this very sermon of Tauler. For Luther did not at first use the word in the purely secular sense in which Tauler used it (compare against Denifle, Luther, p. 163).
Evidently, the advice in Ecclesiasticus, apart from the general admonition to trust in God, makes not the slightest reference to a specifically religious evaluation of labor in the “calling,” and the expression “πόνος,” (toil) rather the opposite. What Jesus Sirach says (in Ecclesiasticus) simply corresponds to the exhortation of the psalmist (Psalm 37.3): “Settle in the land and find safe pasture” [New English Bible]. This is also very clear from the connection with the exhortation (Ecclesiasticus 11.20) not to follow the example of the godless who strive after wealth. The translation of a passage in the First Letter to the Corinthians forms a bridge between those two seemingly quite distinct uses of the word “Beruf” by Luther.
In Luther (in the usual modern editions), the context in which this passage is located is as follows: 1 Corinthians 7.17: “. . . ein jeglicher, wie ihn der Herr berufen hat, also wandle er . . . (18) Ist jemand beschnitten berufen, der zeuge keine Vorhaut. Ist jemand berufen in der Vorhaut, der lasse sich nicht beschneiden. (19) Die Beschneidung ist nichts und die Vorhaut ist nichts; sondern Gottes Gebot halten. (20) Ein jeglicher bleibe in dem Beruf, in dem er berufen ist (ἐν τῆ κλήσει η ἐκλήϑη—as Professor [Geheimrat] A. Merx tells me, this is unquestionably a Hebraism—Vulgate: in qua vocatione vocatus est). (21) Bist du ein Knecht berufen, sorge des nicht; doch kannst du frei werden, so brauche des viel lieber. (22) Denn wer ein Knecht berufen ist, der ist ein Gefreiter des Herrn; desgleichen wer ein Freier berufen ist, der ist ein Knecht Christi. (23) Ihr seid teuer erkauft; werdet nicht der Menschen Knechte. (24) Ein jeglicher, lieben Brüder, worinnen er berufen ist, darinnen bleibe er bei Gott.” In verse 29, there then follows the reminder that “time is short,” which is followed by the familiar instructions arising from eschatological expectations (v. 31), to have wives as though one did not have them, to buy but not to count on possessing what has been bought, and so on. In his exegesis of this chapter, Luther, even in 1523, had followed the older German versions by translating “κλῆσις” in verse 20 as “Ruf” (Erlangen edition, vol. 51, p. 51), and had at that time interpreted this as “Stand” (estate or condition).
In fact it is evident that the word “κλῆσις” in this—and only this—passage corresponds at least approximately to the Latin “status” and our “Stand” (in German), i.e., state, estate, or condition, as in married state, the condition of servant, etc. Only one instance can be found in Greek literature, as far as one can tell from the available lexical material, of this word—the root is related to “ἐκκλησια,” “a gathering called together.” That one instance is a reference in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, where the word corresponds to the Latin “classis”—a Greek loan word meaning a citizens’ division that has been “called up.” Theophylactos (eleventh–twelfth century) interprets 1 Corinthians 7.20 to mean “ἐν οϖ βίϖ καἰ ἐν οϖ τ ά γ μ α τ ι καί πολιτεύματι ν ὲπι�
�τευσεν”5 (my colleague Professor Deiβmann drew my attention to this passage). Certainly, “κλῆσις”does not correspond to our modern “Beruf” in the passage with which we are concerned. But Luther, who had translated “κλῆσις” as “Beruf” in the eschatologically motivated exhortation that everyone should remain in his present condition, subsequently (presumably because of the objective similarity of the advice), when he translated the Apocrypha, also rendered “πόνος” with “Beruf” in the traditionalist and antichrematistically motivated advice of Jesus Sirach (in Ecclesiasticus) that everyone should remain in his occupation [Hantierung].
In the meantime (or about the same time), in the Augsburg Confession of 1530, the Protestant dogma of the uselessness of the exceeding of innerworldly standards of morality (as taught by Catholic doctrine), was laid down, using the words “einem jeglichen nach seinem Beruf” [to each according to his calling] (see note 38 above). Luther’s translation clearly reflects both this and his respect (which was increasing considerably in the early 1530s) for the sanctity of the order in which the individual has been placed, a product of his ever-more sharply defined belief in the very special divine decrees operating right down to the details of life, together with his increasing tendency to accept the secular order as immutably willed by God. For whereas he now translates “π́ονος” and “ργον” in Ecclesiasticus [Jesus Sirach] as “Beruf,” a few years previously he had translated (in Pro-verbs 22.29) as “Geschäft,” the Hebrew [] which was undoubtedly the basis for “πόνος” and “εργον” in the Greek text of Ecclesiasticus [Jesus Sirach] and is derived from the root = “to send,” and thus from “mission.” Like the German “Beruf” and the Nordic “kallelse,” this Hebrew word refers especially to the spiritual “Beruf,” or calling (Septuagint: ε̌ργον, Vulgate: “opus,” English Bibles: “business,” and similarly the Nordic and all other translations). Admittedly, as Professor Merx informs me, even in ancient times the Hebrew word had completely lost any link with the original concept, just as, for example, our word “Berufsstatistik” (occupational statistics) has lost its links with the meaning of “Beruf” as “calling.”
As early as the sixteenth century, the term “Beruf” became established in its present meaning in secular literature. The Bible translators before Luther had used the term “Berufung” for “κλησις” (thus, for example, in the Heidelberg incunabula of 1462/66 and 1485), and Eck’s Ingolstadt translation of 1537 has “in dem Ruf, worin er beruft ist.” The later Catholic translations usually follow Luther directly. In England, the Wyclif Bible translation (1382) used “cleping” (the Old English word which was later replaced by the loan word “calling”), and Tyndale, in 1534, expresses the idea in a secular sense: “in the same state wherein he was called,” as does the Geneva Bible of 1557. Cranmer’s official translation of 1539 replaced “state” with “calling,” while the (Catholic) Rheims Bible of 1582, like the Anglican Court Bibles of the Elizabethan Age, reverted, in typical fashion, to “vocation,” following the Vulgate. Murray (see his entry under “calling” has already correctly established that the Cranmer translation is the source of the Puritan concept of the “calling” in the sense of “Beruf” to mean “trade.” As early as the mid-sixteenth century, “calling” is used in this sense: by 1588, we read of “unlawful callings,” and in 1603, “greater callings” in the sense of “higher professions—Berufe,” etc. (See Murray, op. cit.)
40) Compare the following with the instructive study by K. Eger, Die Anschauung Luthers vom Beruf (Giessen, 1900). His only possible weakness is that, like almost all other theological writers, Eger fails to analyze with sufficient clarity the concept of the “lex naturae” (see, on this subject, Ernst Troeltsch in his review of Seeberg’s Dogmengeschichte, Gött. Gel. Anz., 1902).
41) For when Thomas Aquinas represents the classification of people according to estate [ständisch] and occupation [beruflich] as the work of divine providence, he means by this the objective kosmos of society. But the reason why the individual turns to a particular concrete “calling” (as we should say, Aquinas says “ministerium” or “officium”), is to be found in “causae naturales.” Quaest. Quodlibetal. VII, article 17c: “Haec autem diversificatio hominum in diversis officiis contingit primo ex divina providentia, quae ita hominum status distribuit, . . . secundo etiam ex causis naturalibus, ex quibus contingit, quod in diversis hominibus sunt diversae inclinationes ad diversa officia. . . .” The contrast with the Protestant concept of the calling (and also the Lutheran concept—which, especially in its emphasis on providence, is so closely related to it in other ways) is so clear that this quotation is sufficient to make the point at this juncture, especially as we shall be returning to an assessment of the Catholic attitude at a later stage. Regarding Aquinas, see Maurenbrecher, Thomas von Aquinos Stellung zum Wirtschaftsleben seiner Zeit, 1898. Incidentally, where Luther appears to agree with Aquinas in details, it is probably the general doctrine of scholasticism rather than Aquinas in particular that has influenced him. For he seems, as Denifle has shown, in fact to have had only a rather inadequate knowledge of Aquinas (see Denifle, Luther und Luthertum, 1903, p. 501, and also Köhler, Ein Wort zu Denifles Luther, 1904, p. 25f.).
42) In “Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen” (On the Freedom of a Christian Man), (1) the “double nature” of man is employed as the basis for innerworldly duties within the lex naturae (here, the natural order of the world) which results from the fact that (Erlangen edition, vol. 27, p. 188) man is de facto tied both to his body and to the social community. (2) In this situation he will (p. 196)—and this is a second reason linked to the first point—if he is a believing Christian, resolve to repay God’s mercy by loving his neighbor. This very loose connection between “faith” and “love” is related to (3) (p. 190) the ancient ascetic justification of labor as a means of giving the “inward” man control over his body. (4) Labor is therefore a special instinct [Trieb] implanted in Adam by God before the fall, which he has followed “solely to please God.” Thus the idea of the “lex naturae” (here, natural morality) comes into play in a different way. Finally, (5) (pp. 161 and 199) in Matthew (7.18f.) the idea is expressed that good work in one’s calling is, and can only be, a result of the new life resulting from faith. This idea was not, however, developed into the Calvinist idea of “proving oneself” [Bewährung]. The employment of so many diverse conceptual elements can be explained by the powerful tide of emotion on which the writing is carried along.
43) “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love; and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.” (Wealth of Nations, Book 1, chap. 2).
44) “Omnia enim per te operabitur (Deus), mulgebit per te vaccam et servilissima quaeque opera faciet, ac maxima pariter et minima ipsi grata erunt” (exegesis of Genesis, Opera Latina Exegetica, ed. Elsperger, article VII, p. 213). Before Luther, the idea is found in Tauler, who, in principle, equates in value the spiritual and the secular “Ruf” (call). Opposition to Thomism is common to both German mysticism and Luther. This opposition finds its expression in the fact that Aquinas felt compelled to interpret the Pauline principle “If any would not work, neither should he eat,” (2 Thess. 3.10, AV) in such a manner that the duty of work, which after all is obligatory, lege naturae, was laid upon mankind in general, but not upon every individual. This was because he needed to maintain the moral value of contemplation, but also give due weight to the mendicant orders. The gradation in the value placed upon work, starting from the “opera servilia” of the peasants, has to do with the specific character of the mendicant orders, which, for material reasons, were inevitably domiciled in the towns. Such gradation was foreign to both the German mystics and Luther, who was from a peasant family. To them, all occupations were equal in value. They stressed, however, the divinely willed o
rdering according to estate.
The relevant passages of Thomas Aquinas can be found in Maurenbrecher, Thomas von Aquinos Stellung zum Wirtschaftsleben seiner Zeit (Leipzig, 1898, p. 65f.).
45) With regard to the Fuggers, Luther says: “It cannot be right or godly for so much great and royal wealth to be accumulated in the life of one man.” This is essentially an expression of the suspicion of the peasant toward capital. Similarly (Groβer Sermon vom Wucher, Erlangen edition, vol. 20, p. 109), he finds the purchase of annuities morally questionable, because it is “a new, hastily invented thing” [ein neues behendes erfunden Ding]—that is, because it is economically obscure, just as something like a forward transaction [Terminhandel] might seem obscure to the modern clergyman.
