The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
in the works of the older Bible translators or preachers. The German Bibles before Luther rendered the passage from Sirach with Werk. Berthold of Regensburg, at the points in his sermons where the modern would say Beruf, uses the word Arbeit. The usage was thus the same as in antiquity. The first passage I know, in which not Beruf but Ruf (as a translation of κλῆσις) is applied to purely worldly labour, is in the fine sermon of Tauler on Ephesians iv (Works, Basle edition, f. 117. v), of peasants who misten go: they often fare better "so sie folgen einfeltiglich irem Ruff denn die geistlichen Menschen, die auf ihren Ruf nicht Acht haben". The word in this sense did not find its way into everyday speech. Although Luther's usage at first vacillates between Ruf and Beruf (see Werke, Erlangen edition, p. 51.), that he was directly influenced by Tauler is by no means certain, although the Freiheit eines Christenmenschen is in many respects similar to this sermon of Tauler. But in the purely worldly sense of Tauler, Luther did not use the word Ruf. (This against Denifle, Luther, p. 163.)
Now evidently Sirach's advice in the version of the Septuagint contains, apart from the general exhortation to trust in God, no suggestion of a specifically religious valuation of secular labour in a calling. The term πόνος, toil, in the corrupt second passage would be rather the opposite, if it were not corrupted. What Jesus Sirach says simply corresponds to the exhortation of the psalmist (Psa. xxxvii. 3), "Dwell in the land, and feed on his faithfulness", as also comes out clearly in the connection with the warning not to let oneself be blinded with the works of the godless, since it is easy for God to make a poor man rich. Only the opening exhortation to remain in the הק (verse 20) has a certain resemblance to the κλῆσις of the Gospel, but here Luther did not use the word Beruf for the Greek διαθήκη. The connection between Luther's two seemingly quite unrelated uses of the word Beruf is found in the first letter to the Corinthians and its translation.
In the usual modern editions, the whole context in which the passage stands is as follows, 1 Cor. vii. 17 (English, King James version [American revision, 1901]): "(17) Only as the Lord hath distributed to each man, as God hath called each, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all churches. (18) Was any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Hath any man been called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised. (19) Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing; but the keeping of the commandments of God. (20) Let each man abide in that calling wherein he was called (ἐν τῇ κλήσει ῃ ἐκλήθη; an undoubted Hebraism, as Professor Merx tells me). (21) Wast thou called being a bondservant? care not for it; nay even if thou canst become free use it rather. (22) For he that was called in the Lord being a bondservant is the Lord's freedman; likewise he that was called being free is
