The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
14. This is not the place to follow the subject farther. Compare the authors cited in Note 16 below.
15. Compare the remarks in Jülicher's fine book, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, II, pp. 108, 636 f.
16. With what follows, compare above all the discussion in Eger, op. cit. Also Schneckenburger's fine work, which is even to-day not yet out of date (Vergleichende Darstellung der lutherischen und reformierten Lehrbegriffe, Grüder, Stuttgart, 1855). Luthardt's Ethik Luthers, p. 84 of the first edition, the only one to which I have had access, gives no real picture of the development. Further compare Seeberg, Dogmengeschichte, II, pp. 262 ff. The article on Beruf in the Realenzyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche is valueless. Instead of a scientific analysis of the conception and its origin, it contains all sorts of rather sentimental observations on all possible subjects, such as the position of women, etc. Of the economic literature on Luther, I refer here only to Schmoller's studies ("Geschichte der Nationalökonomischen Ansichten in Deutschland während der Reformationszeit", Zeitschrift f. Staatswiss., XVI, 1860); Wiskemann's prize essay (1861); and the study of Frank G. Ward ("Darstellung und Würdigung von Luthers Ansichten vom Staat und seinen wirtschaftlichen Aufgaben", Conrads Abhandlungen, XXI, Jena, 1898). The literature on Luther in commemoration of the anniversary of the Reformation, part of which is excellent, has, so far as I can see, made no definite contribution to this particular problem. On the social ethics of Luther (and the Lutherans) compare, of course, the relevant parts of Troeltsch's Soziallehren.
17. Analysis of the Seventh Chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, 1523, Erlangen edition, LI, p. 1. Here Luther still interprets the idea of the freedom of every calling before God in the sense of this passage, so as to emphasize (1) that certain human institutions should be repudiated (monastic vows, the prohibition of mixed marriages, etc.), (2) that the fulfillment of traditional worldly duties to one's neighbour (in itself indifferent before God) is turned into a commandment of brotherly love. In fact this characteristic reasoning (for instance pp. 55, 56) fundamentally concerns the question of the dualism of the lex naturæ in its relations with divine justice.
18. Compare the passage from Von Kaufhandlung und Wucher, which Sombart rightly uses as a motto for his treatment of the handicraft spirit (= traditionalism): "Darum musst du dir fürsetzen, nichts denn deine ziemliche Nahrung zu suchen in solchem Handel, danach Kost, Mühe, Arbeit und Gefahr rechnen und überschlagen und also dann die Ware selbst setzen, steigern oder niedern, dass du solcher Arbeit und Mühe Lohn davon hasst." The principle is formulated in a thoroughly Thomistic spirit.
19. As early as the letter to H. von Sternberg of 1530, in which he dedicates the Exigesis of the 117th Psalm to him, the estate of the