Page:The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism.djvu/225

 πόνος (the Hebrew original speaks of the shining of divine help!). Otherwise in antiquity τὰ προσήκοντο is used in the general sense of duties. In the works of the Stoics κάματος occasionally carries similar connotations, though its linguistic source is indifferent (called to my attention by A. Dieterich). All other expressions (such as τάξις, etc.) have no ethical implications.

In Latin what we translate as calling, a man's sustained activity under the division of labour, which is thus (normally) his source of income and in the long run the economic basis of his existence, is, aside from the colourless opus, expressed with an ethical content, at least similar to that of the German word, either by officium (from opificium, which was originally ethically colourless, but later, as especially in Seneca de benef, IV, p. 18, came to mean Beruf); or by munus, derived from the compulsory obligations of the old civic community; or finally by professio. This last word was also characteristically used in this sense for public obligations, probably being derived from the old tax declarations of the citizens. But later it came to be applied in the special modern sense of the liberal professions (as in professio bene dicendi), and in this narrower meaning had a significance in every way similar to the German Beruf, even in the more spiritual sense of the word, as when Cicero says of someone "non intelligit quid profiteatur", in the sense of "he does not know his real profession". The only difference is that it is, of course, definitely secular without any religious connotation. That is even more true of ars, which in Imperial times was used for handicraft. The Vulgate translates the above passages from Jesus Sirach, at one point with opus, the other (verse 21) with locus, which in this case means something like social station. The addition of mandaturam tuorum comes from the ascetic Jerome, as Brentano quite rightly remarks, without, however, here or elsewhere, calling attention to the fact that this was characteristic of precisely the ascetic use of the term, before the Reformation in an otherworldly, afterwards in a worldly, sense. It is furthermore uncertain from what text Jerome's translation was made. An influence of the old liturgical meaning of מְלָאכָה does not seem to be impossible.

In the Romance languages only the Spanish vocacion in the sense of an inner call to something, from the analogy of a clerical office, has a connotation partly corresponding to that of the German word, but it is never used to mean calling in the external sense. In the Romance Bible translations the Spanish vocacion, the Italian vocazione and chiamamento, which otherwise have a meaning partly corresponding to the Lutheran and Calvinistic usage to be discussed presently, are used only to translate the κλῆσις of the New Testament, the call of the Gospel to eternal salvation, which in the Vulgate is vocatio. Strange to say, Brentano, op. cit., maintains that this fact, which I have myself adduced to defend my view, is evidenced for the existence