The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
of the concept of the calling in the sense which it had later, before the Reformation. But it is nothing of the kind. κλῆσις had to be translated by vocatio. But where and when in the Middle Ages was it used in our sense? The fact of this translation, and in spite of it, the lack of any application of the word to worldly callings is what is decisive. Chiamamento is used in this manner along with vocazione in the Italian Bible translation of the fifteenth century, which is printed in the Collezione di opere inedite e rare (Bologna, 1887), while the modern Italian translations use the latter alone. On the other hand, the words used in the Romance languages for calling in the external worldly sense of regular acquisitive activity carry, as appears from all the dictionaries and from a report of my friend Professor Baist (of Freiburg), no religious connotation whatever. This is so no matter whether they are derived from ministerium or officium, which originally had a certain religious colouring, or from ars, professio, and implicare (impeigo), from which it has been entirely absent from the beginning. The passages in Jesus Sirach mentioned above, where Luther used Beruf, are translated: in French, v. 20, office; v. 21, labeur (Calvinistic translation); Spanish, v. 20, obra; v. 21, lugar (following the Vulgate); recent translations, posto (Protestant). The Protestants of the Latin countries, since they were minorities, did not exercise, possibly without even making the attempt, such a creative influence over their respective languages as Luther did over the still less highly rationalized (in an academic sense) German official language.
2. On the other hand, the Augsburg Confession only contains the idea implicitly and but partially developed. Article XVI (ed. by Kolde, p. 43) teaches: "Meanwhile it (the Gospel) does not dissolve the ties of civil or domestic economy, but strongly enjoins us to maintain them as ordinances of God and in such ordinances (ein jeder nach seinem Beruf) to exercise charity." (Translated by Rev. W. H. Teale, Leeds, 1842.)
(In Latin it is only "et in talibus ordinationibus exercere caritatem". The English is evidently translated directly from the Latin, and does not contain the idea which came into the German version.—Translator's Note.)
The conclusion drawn, that one must obey authority, shows that here Beruf is thought of, at least primarily, as an objective order in the sense of the passage in 1 Cor. vii. 20.
And Article XXVII (Kolde, p. 83) speaks of Beruf (Latin in vocatione sua) only in connection with estates ordained by God: clergy, magistrates, princes, lords, etc. But even this is true only of the German version of the Konkordienbuch, while in the German Ed. princeps the sentence is left out.
Only in Article XXVI (Kolde, p. 81) is the word used in a sense which at least includes our present meaning: "that he did chastise his body, not to deserve by that discipline remission of sin, but to
