by Max Weber
The idea did, however, continue to prevail that the particular value of the brotherhood, compared to other churches, lay in its Christian activities, in missionary work, and—something which was seen to be linked with this—in labor in a calling. [177] In addition, the practical rationalization of life from the viewpoint of utility was a vital part of Zinzendorf’s philosophy of life. [178] For him—as for other representatives of Pietism—rationalization was prompted, on the one hand, by a decided distaste for philosophical speculation, which was seen as endangering faith, and by a corresponding preference for specialized empirical knowledge [179], and, on the other hand, by the practical experience of the professional [Berufs] missionary. As a center of mission, the brotherhood was at the same time a business enterprise, and so introduced its members into the ways of innerworldly asceticism, which, in any sphere of life, first asks about “tasks” and then tackles these in a calm and methodical way. An obstacle to achieving this was the glorification of the charisma of apostolic poverty in the “disciples” [180] (derived from the example of the missionary life of the apostles), who were chosen through the “election of grace.” This was in effect a partial revival of the “consilia evangelica.” The creation of a rational ethic of the Calvinist type was held back by this, even if—as the example of the transformation of the Baptist movement shows—it was not excluded.
All in all, when we consider German Pietism from our point of view, we shall have to note a certain shakiness and insecurity in the religious basis of its asceticism, which falls well short of the iron consistency of Calvinism. This may be ascribed partly to Lutheran influences and partly to the emotional character of its religiosity. True, it is very one-sided to represent this emotional element as the feature which distinguishes Pietism from Lutheranism [181]. But, in comparison with Calvinism, the intensity of the rationalization of life was necessarily less. Thinking about having to repeatedly prove one’s state of grace, the guarantee of one’s eternal future, was the inner driving force for the Calvinist, and drew his attention emotionally to the present, in which the predestined Christian must constantly endeavor to gain self-confidence afresh in restless and successful labor in his calling. In the Pietist this self-confidence was replaced by that humility and brokenness [182] of character which was partly a result of emotional agitation (directed purely to inward experiences), and partly the result of the Lutheran institution of confession, which was admittedly often viewed with serious misgivings by Pietism, but was usually tolerated. [183] But in all this is manifested that specific Lutheran manner of seeking salvation, for which the “forgiveness of sins,” not practical “sanctification” is crucial. In place of the methodical rational striving to gain and keep the certain knowledge of future bliss (in the hereafter), here the need is to feel reconciliation and communion with God here and now in this life. However, just as in external “material” life, the inclination to seek enjoyment in the present conflicts with the rational structuring of the “economy,” which is, after all, based on the need to make provision for the future, so it is, in a sense, in the sphere of religious life.
Quite obviously, compared with the need of the Reformed “saints” to prove themselves with a view to the life hereafter, the directing of religious need to an inward emotional feeling in the present involved a diminution of the drive [Antrieb] toward the rationalization of innerworldly action. Admittedly, the Pietist was able to develop an extra degree of methodical religious penetration of the conduct of life compared with the orthodox Lutheran, with his traditionalist adherence to the word and sacraments. On the whole, though, Pietism from Francke and Spener to Zinzendorf moved in the direction of an increasing emphasis on the emotional. This is not, however, just the expression of some “developmental tendency” immanent within it. The differences follow from the contrasting religious and social backgrounds of their leading representatives. We shall have more to say about this in another context. Later on, we shall also speak about how the particular nature of German Pietism is expressed in its social and geographic distribution. [184] Here we must once again remind ourselves that, of course, the differences between this emotional Pietism and the religious conduct of life of the Puritan saints are a matter of subtle nuance. If we had to make a provisional assessment of the practical effect of these differences, we might say that the virtues cultivated by Pietism tend to be those which might be developed by, on the one hand, the “faithful” [berufstreu] employee, laborer, and home worker, and, on the other hand, in the manner of Zinzendorf, rather patriarchally minded employers displaying pious condescension. Compared to this, Calvinism seems to have a closer affinity with the tough, upstanding, and active mind of the middle-class [bürgerlich] capitalist entrepreneur. [185] Finally, pure emotional Pietism—as Ritschl [186] has stressed—is a religious pastime for “leisure classes.”27 Inadequate though this description is—as will be shown—it does tally with certain differences in the economic character of the peoples who have been under the influence of one or other of the two ascetic traditions.
[METHODISM]
A combination of emotional and yet ascetic religious practice and increasing indifference or even rejection of the dogmatic foundation of Calvinist asceticism is a distinguishing mark of the Anglo-American equivalent of continental Pietism, namely, Methodism. [187] The very name illustrates what struck its contemporaries about it: the “methodical” and systematic conduct of life with the purpose of achieving certitudo salutis—for this was crucial here, too, and it remained at the center of the religious strivings of the Methodists. The affinity which, despite all differences, it undoubtedly had with German Pietism [188] is evident in particular from the fact that this methodical approach was especially applied to the bringing about of the emotional act of “conversion.” And here—since Methodism was conceived as a mission for the masses from the very start—the emphasis on feeling that had been aroused in John Wesley by the influence of the Lutherans and the Herrnhut Brotherhood (Moravians) took on a strongly emotional character, especially on American soil. Repentance, which at times was only achieved after a frenzied struggle [Buβkampf] of terrifying proportions, and in America was preferably performed on the “penitent form” [Angstbank],28 led to faith in God’s unmerited grace and at the same time to an immediate consciousness of justification and reconciliation.
With a fair amount of difficulty, this emotional religiosity now combined with the ethic which had once and for all been given a rational stamp by Puritanism. First of all, in contrast to Calvinism, which suspected everything purely emotional of being a delusion, absolute certainty of the saved person—the day and hour of whose conversion would normally be known—was regarded as the only indubitable foundation of certitudo salutis. Such certainty rested entirely on the feelings and flowed from the direct witness of the spirit. According to Wesley’s doctrine, which represents a logical development of the doctrine of sanctification, but is a decided departure from the orthodox version, a person reborn in this way can now, in this life, through the working of grace, come to the consciousness of perfection, or sinlessness. This comes about through a second, separate, and equally sudden inner process known as “sanctification.” However difficult it may be to achieve this goal—and it is usually only achieved toward the end of one’s life—it is vital to strive toward it—because it provides the final guarantee of certitudo salutis and gives joyful assurance in place of the “morose” anxiety of the Calvinists [189]—and in any case the truly converted person must distinguish himself as such to himself and others by at least showing that sin “has no more power over him.”
Despite the crucial importance of the witness of emotion, the importance of the holy life, based upon the law [of God], is, of course, upheld. Where Wesley takes issue with the idea of “holiness through works” [Werkgerechtigkeit] commonly accepted in his time, he is doing no more than reviving the old Puritan idea that works are not the real grounds for the state of grace but only the grounds for recognizing it, and even this onl
y when they are done exclusively for God’s glory. A good life [der korrekte Wandel] alone is not sufficient—as he experienced for himself—the emotion of the state of grace must be present as well. He himself occasionally describes works as a “condition” of grace, and in the Declaration of August 9, 1771 [190], he stresses that anyone who does no good works is no true believer.
In spite of all that, there were difficulties. [191] Since the certainty of “perseverantia” was linked to the once only act of repentance, certitudo salutis was no longer located in the consciousness of grace which flowed from constant testing in the ascetic life, but in the direct emotion of grace and perfection. This could mean one of two things for Methodists who were adherents of the doctrine of predestination. [192] Either, in the case of weak characters, there was a danger of adopting an antinomian29 interpretation of “Christian freedom,” which meant the breakdown of the methodical conduct of life, or, if this logical extreme was resisted, the experience could lead to a degree of self-assurance in the saint which could reach dizzying heights [193]—an emotional intensification of the Puritan type. In the light of attacks from their opponents, the Methodists attempted to counter these problems in two ways. Firstly, by an increased emphasis on the normative validity of the Bible and the indispensability of proof. [194] Secondly, by a strengthening of Wesley’s anti-Calvinist tendency within the movement, which taught that grace could be lost. The strong Lutheran influences to which, through the mediation of the Moravian Brotherhood, Wesley had been exposed [195], strengthened this development and increased the undefined nature of the religious orientation of Methodist morality. [196] The result was that finally, in essence, the only concepts firmly held on to were those of “regeneration”30—an emotional assurance of being saved which came as a direct fruit of faith, as indispensable foundation, and sanctification with its consequence of (at least virtual) freedom from the power of sin, as a demonstration of the state of grace. The importance of external means of grace, especially the sacraments, was correspondingly devalued.
Methodism therefore seems to us to be an edifice resting on ethical foundations as insecure as those of Pietism. However, the striving for the “higher life,”31 and the “second blessing,” served as a kind of substitute for the doctrine of predestination, and, growing up on English soil, the practice of its ethics was certainly based on that of Reformed Christianity, of which it claimed to be a “revival.”32
The emotional act of conversion was brought about methodically, but its achievement was not followed by a pious enjoyment of communion with God in the style of the emotional Pietism of Zinzendorf; instead, the emotion thereby awakened was immediately directed into the path of the rational striving for perfection. The emotional character of the religious experience did not therefore lead to an inward type of emotional Christianity in the manner of German Pietism. Schneckenburger has already demonstrated that this feature is connected with a less developed sense of sin (due in part to the very fact of the emotional nature of the conversion experience). This has been a regular focus of criticism of Methodism ever since. Here the basic Reformed character of the religious feeling remained dominant. The emotional arousal took on the character of an enthusiasm which is occasionally whipped up “to a frenzy,” but which otherwise did not detract at all from the rational character of the conduct of life. [197] Methodist “regeneration”33 thus merely created an extension of pure holiness through works: a religious grounding for the ascetic life [Lebensführung] when predestination had been abandoned. The distinguishing features of the conduct of life that were indispensable as a check on (or “condition of,” as Wesley would sometimes say) the genuineness of conversion are materially the same as for Calvinism. We can more or less disregard Methodism in relation to the idea of the calling, as it is a latecomer on the scene [198] and contributed nothing new to it. It only becomes important for our concerns when we come to a consideration of social ethics and thus to the regulation of working life [Berufsleben] by the ecclesiastical authorities. For it is in the manner of its organization that its effectiveness particularly lies.
[THE BAPTIST MOVEMENT]
From the point of view of their thought content as well as their historical development, the Pietism of the European continent and the Methodism of the Anglo-Saxon people are merely secondary phenomena. A second autonomous bearer of Protestant asceticism, alongside Calvinism, is the Baptist movement [Täufertum] and the sects [199] which, in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, directly or through acceptance of its religious modes of thought, emerged from it, namely, the Baptists, the Mennonites, and, above all, the Quakers. [200] With these we arrive at religious communities whose ethic rests on a basis which is different in principle from the Reformed doctrine. The following sketch, which only selects what is for the moment important for us, cannot convey any conception of the variety within this movement. Again we shall place the main emphasis on developments in the old capitalist countries.
From the historical point of view, the most important idea of all these communities (its significance for cultural development can only be made clear in a different context) is already familiar to us in outline, namely, the “believers’ church.”34 [201] That is, the religious community, the “visible church,” to use the language of the Reformation churches [202], is no longer regarded as a kind of charitable foundation [Fideikommisstiftung] for celestial purposes, an institution which necessarily comprised the righteous and the unrighteous—whether it be for the increase of the glory of God (Calvinist), or for the mediation of salvation [Heilsgüter] to men (Catholic and Lutheran),—but exclusively as a community of personal believers and born-again Christians and only these: in other words, not as a “church,” but as a “sect”.35 [203] This is what is intended to be symbolized by the (in itself) purely external principle of baptizing exclusively adults who have personally come to faith and confessed it. [204] For the Baptists [Täufer], as they have consistently stressed in all religious debates, “justification” through this faith is radically different from the idea of a “forensic” imputation of the merits of Christ, which dominates the orthodox dogma of old Protestantism. [205] It consists in the inward appropriation of his redeeming work. But this appropriation is the result of individual revelation, the working of the divine spirit in the individual, and only in this way. It is offered to everyone and the only requirement is to wait on the spirit and not to resist its coming by sinful attachment to the world. The significance of faith in the sense of knowledge of the Church’s doctrine, or in the sense of taking hold of God’s grace in penitence, was quite muted in comparison, and there was a renaissance of early Christian pneumatic religious ideas, although these were very much remodeled. The sect for which Menno Simons, in his Fondamentboek (1539), first created a tolerably unified doctrine, claimed, as did the other Baptist sects, to be the true spotless Church of Christ, consisting, like the primitive Church, exclusively of those who had been personally awakened and called by God. The regenerate and they alone are the brethren of Christ, because, like him, they have been directly spiritually begotten by God. [206] The outcome for the first communities of Baptists was a strict shunning of the “world,” that is, of all nonessential dealings with worldly people, linked with the strictest bibliocracy, which looked to the first generation of Christians as models to be emulated, and this principle of shunning the world never quite disappeared as long as the old spirit remained alive. [207]
From these motives, which dominated their early period, the Baptist sects appropriated that principle with which we are already familiar in Calvinism (though there it is justified in a slightly different way), and whose fundamental importance is a continuing theme, namely, the absolute condemnation of all “idolatry” as a devaluation of the reverence due to God alone. [208] For the first Swiss and Upper German generation of Baptists, the biblical way of conducting one’s life was as radical as it originally was for Saint Francis: an abrupt break with all the pleasures of the world, and a life
led strictly according to the example set by the apostles. And in truth the life of many of their first representatives recalls that of Saint Aegidius.36 But this extremely strict biblical observance [209] was not very firmly based, when viewed in light of the pneumatic character of their religiosity. What God has revealed to the prophets and apostles is not the sum total of what he can reveal and wants to reveal. On the contrary, the continuation of the word, not as a written document, but as a force of the Holy Spirit working in the daily lives of the faithful, who speaks directly to the individual if he is willing to listen, is, as the early Christian communities testify, the sole mark of the true Church. This was the teaching of Schwenckfeld37 contra Luther, and later of Fox contra the Presbyterians. Out of this idea of the continuing revelation has come the well-known doctrine, which was later developed consistently by the Quakers, of the significance of the inner witness of the spirit in reason and conscience.
In this way the principle of the sole authority (though not the validity) of the Bible was done away with, and at the same time a development was introduced which swept away all external and magical remnants of the Church’s doctrine of salvation, including even, in the case of the Quakers, Baptism and the Holy Communion. [210] Only the “inner light” makes possible a true understanding even of the biblical revelation of God. [211] Its effect can, on the other hand, at least according to the Quakers, who took the doctrine to its logical conclusion, extend to people who have never known the biblical form of the revelation. The principle: “extra ecclesiam nulla salus” applies only to this invisible church of those illuminated by the spirit. Without the inner light, the natural man, even if guided by natural reason [212], remains a purely creaturely being, whose complete remoteness from God the Baptists, and the Quakers too, sensed more acutely than the Calvinists. On the other hand, the regeneration which the spirit brings about, if we wait patiently for it, and inwardly devote ourselves to it, can, since it is the work of God, lead to a condition of such complete victory over the power of sin [213] that relapses or indeed the loss of the state of grace become a practical impossibility. It remains true, however, as in the case of Methodism later, that the achievement of that state is not regarded as the norm; the degree of perfection of the individual is seen as subject to development.
