Max Weber on Church, Sect, and Mysticism

Author(s): Ferdinand Toennies, Georg Simmel, Ernst Troeltsch, Max Weber

Source: Sociological Analysis, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Summer, 1973), pp. 140-149
Published by: Oxford University Press
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Max Weber on Church, Sect, and
Mysticism1

Introduction

The following discussion by Max Weber on church, sect, and mysticism offers an
exceptional example of the different ways which four of the greatest German
sociologists related to key issues in the domains of the sociology of religion and the
forms of religiosity in the course of a colloquy held at the first meeting of the
German Sociological Society (Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Soziologie) at Frankfurt in
1910. The chief themes at issue in their colloquy, though not always so plainly
stated, were the varied patterns of relations of churches, sects, mysticisms,
rationalisms, rationalizations, and secularizations on the roads to modernity.
The main participants in the colloquium were Ernst Troeltsch, who initiated the
discussion by offering an historic paper on Stoic-Christian natural law;2 Ferdinand
Toennies, Georg Simmel, and Weber himself. (A fifth man who figured in the
background of these discussions but was not named by any of the discussants was
Weber's close friend, Georg Jellinek, about whose seminal research we shall speak in
an essay on this colloquy now in preparation.3) We shall there wish to focus on the
outcomes of Weber's interactions and exchanges with the others in the hope of
identifying distinctive contributions he and the others, especially Troeltsch (and
Jellinek), made to a wider processual and comparative-historical sociology of
religious orientations and movements than is usually ascribed to these men
nowadays by specialists in the sociology of religion. (BN)

1Tr. by Jerome L. Gittleman, ed. by Benjamin Nelson from "Diskussionsrede zu E. Troeltsch's

Vortrag iiber 'Das stoisch-christliche Naturrecht'," in Max Weber Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Soziologie
und Sozialpolitik (Tibingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1924), pp. 462-70. The translator and editor thank
Professor Stephen Berger of the Department of Sociology of the State University of New York at
Stony Brook, N.Y., for some helpful suggestions about the translation.
2A translation of the full text of Troeltsch's paper here under discussion will soon be appearing in a
volume of Troeltsch's Collected Papers now being edited by James Luther Adams. (The original will
now be found in E. Troeltsch, Aufsatze zur Geistesgeschichte und Religionssoziologie. Tiibingen:
Mohr, 1924.)
3The editor will have an opportunity along with others to clarify these issues in a subsequent number
of SociologicalAnalysis.

140
 141

I
Honored guests! I wish to say something about the points raised by
Professor Toennies in his remarks.* With respect to the subject we are
discussing, Toennies has-to a considerable degree-avowed himself to be a
supporter of the economic interpretation of history (an expression we prefer
in place of the "materialistinterpretation of history"). One can probably sum-
marize his conception as a whole by means of a modern expression which is
frequently used but not with entire clarity, namely: that the religious contra-
dictions which were discussed in the lecture were "exponential functions" of
some economic contradictions or other. Now gentlemen, there cannot be the
slightest doubt that economic relationships enter deeply here, as everywhere.
And my colleague and friend Troeltsch has, in his well known works,
directed our attention in the most forceful manner to the economic
relationships and conditions of specific religious developments. But one
ought not to think of this development quite so simply. I believe that
perhaps, ultimately, I agree with Toennies on many things. But with respect
to what he has said, at least in some of his remarks, there is an attempt at an
all too rigidly straight construction.
Professor Toennies: For the time being!
Professor Max Weber:If I have understood him (Toennies) correctly, he
has emphasized the relationship of the religious sects to the city in
particular. Now, gentlemen, the first specific sect, the model sect so to
speak, the Donatist sect in antiquity4-originated on purely agricultural
territory. The characteristic feature of this sect, like every sect, was manifest
in the fact that it could not remain satisfied with the Christian church as a
kind of entailed endowment of grace, a church indifferent as to which
person bestowed this grace in sacraments, and thus indifferent to whether or
not the priest was worthy. The church administered magical and marvelous
forces which it dispensed as an institution, completely independent of the
indwelling worthiness of the individual. Donatism turns against this. It
demands that if the priest is to be recognized as a priest by his congregation,
he should fully embody his religious qualifications in his personality and
mode of life. If one wishes to make a conceptual distinction between a sect
and a church, a sect is not an institution (Anstadt) like a church, but a
community of the religiously qualified. All the members of the sect are
called to salvation; only a community comprised in this way-which also
existed as an invisible church in the thought of Luther, Calvin, and
Augustine-passes over into the visible church.
*Toennies, as a commentator on the Troeltsch lecture, was the first speaker preceding Weber at the
German Sociological meeting. (Tr. 's note.)
4Research since Weber's day has confirmed his emphasis on the rural backgrounds of the Donatist
opposition to the so-called Orthodox. On this extremely important sect, see W. H. Frend, The Donatist
Church: A Movement of Protest in Roman North Africa (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952).
142 SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

Everything which arose later from sects is linked in the decisive points to
the demand for purity, the ecclesia pura-a community consisting only of
those members whose mode of conduct and life style do not carry public
signs of heavenly disfavour, but proclaim the glory of God. The churches, in
contrast, permit their light to shine on the just and the unjust alike,
according to the Calvinist and the Catholic, as well as the Lutheran doctrine.
According to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, for example, it is the
church's task to coerce even those who are irredeemably damned to all
eternity, into external conformity to the church. The formation of the
"sect" type of community occurs first, as was said, outside the city.
Now, what was the situation outside antiquity? Professor Toennies has
ascribed responsibility for the kind of development typical of medieval
Christianity to the simplicity of circumstances in the agricultural middle
ages. He has stressed that the conception of church was fractured in the city,
partly in favor of a purely worldly, or at least, the pure worldliness of a
self-developing rationalism, partly in favor of the sect principle (I simplify
what he said without falsification, perhaps with his agreement). Against this
view it can be ascertained that the power of the papacy rested directly (and
by no means merely politically) upon the cities. The Italian cities supported
the pope in opposition to the feudal forces. The Italian guilds were generally
the most Catholic ones anywhere during the period of the great conflicts.
Saint Thomas and the mendicant orders were not possible on any territory
other than that of the city, simply because the orders lived by begging. They
could not live among farmerswho turned beggars away from their door.
Professor Toennies: They revolted against the Benedictine order.
Professor Max Weber: Certainly, but from the territory of the city. The
most intensely charged thoughts of the church, as well as those of the sects
(both, the highest forms of piety) are first upon city territory in the middle
ages. ..
Professor Toennies (interrupting the speaker): The Franciscans have very
important relationships to the sects!
Professor Max Weber: Undoubtedly, there is no question of that. But not
the Dominicans, and I merely state here that the Christianization of the
middle ages by the churches was first completed after there were cities. The
church form and its natural law, as well as the sect form and their
flourishing, were first discovered on the territory of the city. Thus I would
not concede that there is a fundamental distinction to be made here. The
idea that Protestantism was really the form in which Christian piety
accommodated itself to the modern money economy has been advocated
endlessly. In quite the same way it has been supposed that Roman law was
only accepted as a consequence of the relationships of the modern money
economy. But in strong contrast to these positions is the fact that-without
exception-all specific forms of capitalist law in modern times originate in
medieval law (directly Germanic, for the most part), and are completely
 MAX WEBER ON CHURCH, SECT, AND MYSTICISM 143

unknown in Roman law. It is certain furthermore, that the Reformation was

first set in motion from regions that were economically far behind Italy,
Florence, etc. Also, all sects, even the Baptist sects, have developed in rural
areas (e.g. of Friesland), and especially well upon agricultural soil.
Nonetheless, you shall see how far we both agree. I only object to this (and
perhaps you shall not dispute what I say against it). We should not yield to
the opinion (which could be drawn from your words, even though indirectly
and probably against your intention), that one might view religious
developments as a reflex of something else, of some economic situation. In
my opinion this is unconditionally not the case. If one wishes to clarify the
relationship between economic and religious matters, one should recall the
following.
As Professor Toennies will remember, the nobility led the Calvinist-Hugue-
not revolt in Scotland and France-entirely so in Scotland and predominant-
ly so in France. And this was the case everywhere. The split in the church
went perpendicularly and vertically through the social strata of the 16th
century; it embraced persons from the highest to the lowest classes of the
population. It is certainly no accident (and doubtless there are also economic
reasons) that the nobility returned to the lap of the Episcopal church, and
vice versa; that the Scottish middle class found an outlet in the Scottish
Covenant Church. It is no accident that more of the French nobility quit the
banners of the Huguenots after a period of time, and that what remained of
the Huguenots in France was increasingly middle class in character. But this
too should not be taken to mean that the middle class as such had developed
the piety in question from economic motives. On the contrary. The middle
class that was shaped in Scotland has a John Keats, for example, to show as
one of the products of their type of church man. And Voltaire knew the
genuine type well in France. In short, it would be entirely mistaken (and I
only object to this) to wish to give a one-sided economic interpretation (even
the sense that the economic was the chief cause), or that these matters could
be treated as a mere reflex of the economic.

Now I wish to say something directly concerning Professor Troeltsch's

lecture.
First of all, the different types which he introduced to us. For the present
one must regard them as having mutually permeated each other to a
considerable degree-that is evident. Thus, Calvinism (for example) is a
church that could not have endured on the strength of its own dogmatic
foundation. For if one man was destined to go to hell and another to heaven
because of God's decree prior to the creation of the world, then eventually
one would have to raise the question which Calvin himself avoided-would it
be possible to see whether a man was predestined to the one place or the
144 SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

other? In addition it must have awakened the following reflection: What

purpose could be served by the interference of state power and the discipline
of the church? It is absolutely useless for the man who is condemned to hell.
No matter what the man does, or what he is, God has decreed that end for
him many thousands of years ago-he goes to hell and is damned. There is
nothing to be done. And this is the purpose for which those instruments
possessed by the church (in contrast to the sects) are generally set in motion!
In fact-I simplify the matter again-it occurs repeatedly. Witness the
colossal expansion in England of a Baptism dependent upon predestination
beliefs, which was a strong supporter of Cromwell's movement. Even the
situation in New England, for instance, furnishes evidence. The only ones
who dominated the church there were those whose external conduct at least
embraced the possibility that they did not belong among the condemned.
This went so far, that the others-those who did not carry these external
signs-were, on these grounds, not invited to communion because it would
have dishonoured God. And their children were not admitted to christening.
I wish to expand on the following point. The Greek church played a
specially significant role. It did not quite permit itself to be placed in this
role without further development. Gentlemen, three decades ago Russia
found itself, politically and organizationally, approximately in the situation
of Diocletian's empire (and even more so of course until the abolition of
serfdom), although the cultural relationships, and in many respects the
economic relationships, were, in part, essentially different. Russian Chris-
tianity was, and still is today to a considerable measure, classically Christian
in its specific type. Whenever one looks at an authoritarian church this is the
first question to be raised with respect to it: Where is the court of last resort
in which the ultimate infallible power rests for deciding whether or not
someone belongs to the church, or if some church doctrine is correct or
incorrect?-and so forth. We know that in the Catholic church today, after
prolonged struggles, this authority is the Pope's alone. We know that in the
Lutheran church authority rests in the "word," the Holy Scriptures, and also
with those who are called upon to interpret the Scriptures in virtue of their
office, and only these.
If we now ask who represents the court of last resort in the Greek church,
the official answer (as Khomiakovs in particular has interpreted it) is the
community of the church united in love. And here it becomes apparent that
while the Calvinist church is permeated by sectarianism, the Greek church is
saturated, in great measure, with a very specific classical mysticism. There
lives in the Orthodox church a specific mysticism based on the East's

5For Khomiakov's views, see: S. Kuznets, s.v., "Khomyakov, A.S.," in Encyclopaedia of the Social
Sciences, ed. E. R. A. Seligman, IV (1932), pp. 562-3; Russian Intellectual History: An Anthology, ed.
and tr. M. Raeff (N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1966) pp. 208-29; cf. also I.V. Kireevski's very
important letter, "On the Nature of European Culture and Its Relation to the Culture of Russia," ibid,
pp. 174-207.
 MAX WEBER ON CHURCH, SECT, AND MYSTICISM 145

unforgettable belief that brotherly love and charity, those special human
relationships which the great salvation religions have transfigured (and which
seem so pallid among us), that these relationships form a way not only to
some social effects that are entirely incidental, but to a knowledge of the
meaning of the world, to a mystical relationship to God. It is known how
Tolstoy came to terms with this mystical belief.
Generally speaking, if you wish to understand Russian literature in its full
greatness, then you must regard the mystical as the substratum upon which
everything is built. When one reads Russian novels like The Brothers
Karamazov by Dostoevsky, for example, or Tolstoy's Warand Peace, one has
the impression, above all, of the total meaninglessness of events, a senseless
promiscuity of passions. This effect is absolutely not accidental. It does not
merely rest upon the fact that all these novels were written for newspapers,
and when they were begun the author had no suspicion of how they would
end (as was the case with Dumas). Rather the cause lies in the secret
conviction that the political, social, ethical, literary, artistic, and familially
shaped life is really meaningless in contrast to the substratum which extends
beneath it, and which is shown and embodied in the specific forms of
Russian literature. This, however, is extraordinarily difficult for us to grasp
because it rests upon the simple classical Christian idea which Baudelaire
calls the "holy prostitution of the soul," the love of our fellow creature, i.e.,
anyone at all no matter who he may be, even the second-best. That it is this
amorphous unshaped life-relationship that grants access to the gates of the
eternal, timeless, and divine.6 The artistic unity of these productions of
Russian literature, which we customarily fail to see, the forming principle of
their greatest works lies on the reverse side of what is obtained through
reading. It lies in the gravitation of the person, in his behavior, toward the
spiritual extremes, the antipodes, this man whose acts appear to occur on the
world's stage. And that is the result of Russian religiosity. From this acosmic
quality, characteristic of all Russian religiosity, is derived a specific kind of
natural right which is stamped upon the Russian sects and also on Tolstoy.
In addition it is supported by that agrarian communism which still serves as
divine law directing the peasant in the regulation of his social interests. I
cannot detail the matter thoroughly now. But all fundamental ideals of
people like W. L. Solovjev go back to that basis. Solovjev's specific concept
of the church, in particular, rests on it. The concept rests on "community"
(in Toennies sense), not on "society."
I wish to point out one thing in the short time remaining. In his lecture
our colleague Troeltsch treated the contrasts between church, sect, mysti-

6Helpful suggestions on the backgrounds broached in Weber's remarks on Russia will be found in the
following: M. Cherniavsky, Tsar and People: Studies in Russian Myths (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press,
1961); Robert C. Williams, "The Russian Soul: A Study in European Thought and Non-European
Nationalism," Journal of the History of Ideas, 31: 4 (Oct.-Dec., 1970), pp. 573-88, esp. 584 ff.
146 SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

cism and their relationship to the world and to natural law structurally,7 and
of course he must deal with them structurally. But the justification for this
procedure depends upon the fact that when one asks a sectarian about those
trains of thought which made him a sectarian, he will come at last (no
matter how obscurely he expresses it) to what we gathered today from our
colleague Troeltsch. If one asks a member of the Catholic church why he is a
member of this church and not a sectarian, in a similar manner he is
ultimately led to these thoughts. And you can grasp the evidence for this
with your own hands when you discover that Baron von Hertling assured his
co-religionists as follows: whether the Bible is construed in one way or
another, and whatever has happened with it historically, is a matter of
indifference, for the church as a divinely entailed endowment tells us what is
in the Bible no matter who wrote it. Whatever fits in with this is a divine
norm, a divine truth. If we did not have the church the Protestant Bible
would not help us at all. That being so, this conception of the church
manifestly corresponds in its ultimate consequences to the one reported to
us. I have some possible objections to the lecture, namely that this chain of
reasoning does not have to be consciously alive in every adherent of a church
or sect, as an anticipation just for the sake of belief.
Finally, I shall only point out one thing. When one analyzes natural law
doctrines from the perspective of the church, the sect, etc., as Troeltsch
does, one has not of course thereby said that these doctrines did not result in
practical consequences for conduct which appear to us to be entirely
heterogeneous with respect to the inherent content of the church doctrine.
The principle of irrationality, and the lack of congruity in value between
cause and effect is due to the following: A doctrine like that of sectarian
Protestantism, Calvinism, Pietism, which most piously condemns the
collecting of the earth's treasures, may strengthen the psychological motive
which this doctrine set in motion in such a way, that it leads just these very
people to become the great bearers of modern capitalist development. For,
the use of treasures for one's satisfaction were even more sharply condemned
than the gathering of treasures; consequently, nothing less than an ever
renewed utilization of these treasures for capitalist purposes was brought
about. It fostered capitalist development because the necessity for ascetic
proofs in the world bred the man of vocation upon whom capitalism rests.
This is frequently the case. When for example, Troeltsch pointed out that
a national church (Volkskirche), a national Christianity is the only
conceivable form of church that is universal in accordance with its own idea
of universality, then of course the objection to be made against this is that

7For other expressions of Troeltsch's view that "the church, the sect, and mysticism" constituted "the
three main types of the sociological development of Christian thought," see esp. Troeltsch's Social
Teachings of the Christian Churches (1919) in Harper Torchbook ed., 2 vols. (N.Y., 1960), esp. II, pp.
993, 1007.
 MAX WEBER ON CHURCH, SECT, AND MYSTICISM 147

experience shows that America was the most pious country (measured not
only quantitatively but qualitatively) until the threshhold of this century. It
did not know a state church for the longest time and Christianity generally
took on the form of the sects. If I am not mistaken, in the middle of the
1890's only 5% of the American population did not officially belong to a
religious community. And membership in a religious society costs un-
believably more in America than with us. It costs something even for those
who lack the means. It costs the worker who emigrated from Germany to
America (and with whom by chance I became acquainted in the region of
Buffalo) 1,800 marks, yearly revenue payments to the church of 100 marks,
quite apart from the collections and so forth. Try to find a German worker
who would pay as much for any church community, any at all. Precisely
because there (in America) the religious type is the sect type, the religion is a
national (Volk) affair. Because the sect type is not universal but exclusive,
and because its exclusiveness offers definite privileges inwardly and
externally to its supporters, the real place of Christian universalism is,
therefore, in effective membership in a religious community there and not,
as in Germany, among the Christians in name only, where a part of the
well-to-do pay all the taxes for the church-"to preserve religion for the
people"-and, otherwise are happy if they don't have to have anything more
to do with the matter. The only reason they don't leave the church is
because the consequences for advancement and for all other possible social
prospects would be disagreeable.

III
I wish to say only a few words about Simmel's remarks.* The question
concerning the genuine meaning of Christian religiosity is not up for
discussion today. Nevertheless, we have certainly been happy to receive these
arguments. Since they have been partly directed against me, I shall therefore
permit myself to reply briefly.
Having entirely conceded the thesis that in accordance with the
metaphysical meaning of Christianity, nothing might be placed between the
soul and its god, these matters, the empirical relationships which sociology is
concerned with, stand as follows. Every devoutly pious soul, even the
majority of the religious among the highly resolved souls in primitive
Christianity and in all times of religious excitement, these souls must feel
that they really had been standing face to face with their god, and not
something else, to be able in any fashion to enjoy assurance (in faith) in their
everyday lives, that is, to have the "certitudo salutis." This certitude can be

*Simmel commented on Troeltsch's lecture after Weber made the remarks translated in section I and II
above. Just prior to Troeltsch's reply, Weber rejoined the discussion and spoke again. (Tr.'s note.)
148 SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

won in various ways. First of all it is not a sociological certitude, but a

purely psychological question that is therewith touched upon, but one which
has sociologically interesting consequences. The most extreme contrasting
poles which exist are, on the one hand, the forms of world-rejecting
religiosities (which we also experience in modern times) which are preserved
in those spiritual movements of which I spoke earlier and were also
characteristic of certain parts of primitive Christianity: a kind of "acosmic"
love of man, that is the one possibility. On the other hand, there is its most
extreme counter pole: the Calvinistic religiosity which finds the certitude of
being God's child in the to-be-attained "proving of oneself" (Bewahrung)ad
majorem dei gloriam within the given and ordered world. In other words, we
have on the one side the completely amorphous formlessness of acosmic
love; on the other side that unique attitude extremely important for the
history of social and political practice, that the individual feels himself
placed within the social community for the purpose of realizing "God's
glory" and therewith the salvation of his soul.
This last peculiarity of Calvinism determines the meaning of the entire
inner configuration of the social structure which we see originating on this
foundation. In the rearing of these structures there is always a distinctive
moment which reveals the formation of the social structure upon an
egocentric base. It is always the individual who seeks himself by serving the
totality, whatever it may be called. To make use here of the conceptual
polarities used in one of the fundamental books of our modern social-
philosophical orientation, Ferdinand Tonnies' work on Gemeinschaft und
Gesellschaft: the kind of human relationship which develops on this
formation is always a "society" (Gesellschaft), an "associative social
relationship" (Vergesellschaftung), a "civilization" which sheds its "humani-
ty." It is always exchange, market, goal-oriented associations, instead of
personal brotherliness. It is always this as opposed to the other kind-that
"community" of acosmic love on a pure foundation of "brotherhood." The
communism of primitive Christianity and its derivative have empirically the
most varied motives, but motives which always (as in primitive Christianity)
connect up to the old tradition of the primordial relationship of brother-
hood in which the community of eating and drinking together founded a
family-like community. The banning of usury (interest) for Christians,even
in the time of Clement of Alexandria, was motivated by the old principle
that one did not haggle among brothers or employ domanial rights, and
usury (interest) is a domanial right. One did not take advantage among
brothers, but practised brotherhood.8 Conceding everything that Simmel
says on the meaning of the religious attitude, still one must, from the point
of view of sociology, constantly put the psychological question, and indeed

8Cf. B. Nelson, The Idea of Usury: From Tribal Brotherhood to Universal Otherhood, 2nd ed.,
enlarged (Chicago: University of Chicago Press and Phoenix Books, 1969).
 MAX WEBER ON CHURCH, SECT, AND MYSTICISM 149

it has been raised by all sides, even the most extreme, and therefore, from
the religious standpoint, perhaps the highest, forms of mysticism, namely:
How, through what medium, does the individual become certain of his
relationship to the eternal?
Professor Simmel: Reason!
Professor Max Weber:That is entirely correct. Certainly, without doubt, it
is merely a cognitive ground (Erkenntnisgrund), not a real ground (Real-
grund) for bliss.