Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

One of the important ideas the Protestant reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546) emphasized in his interpretation of Christianity was the idea of “calling,” the task set by God for man to accomplish. According to Luther, fulfilling worldly duties for man was, in fact, fulfilling the will of God. The individual is asked to accept his station in life, for doing so is following the will of God. As Max Weber put it in his authoritative work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, the individual is asked to strive to fulfill the will of God by restraining “his worldly activity within the limits imposed by his established station in life.”¹

Luther’s idea of calling has been responsible for the development of intense belief in the divine will of God on the part of the individual Christian, which, in turn, has bred an attitude to accept things as they are, including the secular authority which bounds his worldly activities. After all, even the king, or the prince, can be regarded, to the extent that he is a Christian, as performing his “calling” for the benefit of all members of society.

The idea promulgated by Jean Calvin (1509-1564), known today as Calvinism, has also played an important role in the formulation of ideas behind capitalist development. A salient feature of Calvinism lies in its assertion of “predestination.” According to Calvin, “we call predestination that eternal decree of God, whereby He hath determined what the fate of every man shall be. For not to the same destiny are all created: for, to some is allotted eternal life; to others, eternal damnation. According as a man is made for one end or for the other, we call him predestined to life, or to death.”² Salvation for man is thus regarded entirely as a matter of predetermined gift of God.

According to Calvin, the world exists only to glorify God. The Christian who has been predetermined to receive the grace of God through salvation can fulfill God’s command only if he performs his duty to the best of his abilities. God also wills that social relations be organized for the purpose of promoting His glorification: “The social activity of the Christian in the world is solely activity in majorem glorium Dei. This character is hence shared by labour in a calling which serves the mundane life of the community.”³ The accomplishment of worldly duty is thus seen as identical with the accomplishment of God’s command. The accomplishment of worldly duty is further supported by another Calvinistic theme that the universe is “designed by God to serve the utility of the human race.”⁴

An examination of Calvinism naturally raises the question of how one knows whether one is predestined to life, whether one is part of the elect. Max Weber notes two principles relevant in answering this question. First, it is one’s duty to consider oneself chosen. Second, once this duty is realized, it becomes incumbent on him to engage in his worldly activity to the best of his abilities. “In practice this means that God helps those who help themselves. Thus the Calvinist, as it is sometimes put, himself creates his own salvation, or, as would be more correct, the conviction of it.”⁵

With its emphasis on the duty on the part of the individual Christian to engage in worldly activity with the conviction that the success in it leads to his salvation, it is easy to see how Calvinism came to embody the spirit of capitalism and laid the foundation for capitalist development. Material success thus came to be interpreted as a sign that an individual is among the elect. This emphasis on material success for a faithful Christian is also shared by Pietism, which is known for its express effort to “make the invisible Church of the elect visible on this earth.”⁶ There are two important beliefs of Pietism which bear direct bearing on the spirit of capitalism. First, the development of one’s own grace to a higher degree of certainty is, in itself, regarded as a sign of God’s grace. Second, God gives signs to the elect, success for their labor being a notable example of such signs. Material wealth can thus be regarded as a sign of God’s grace. And labor, being the activity willed by God, is now rewarded by material success.

One other individual whose is worth mentioning in our discussion of Protestantism and capitalism is John Wesley (1703-1791), the leader of Methodism. Of direct relevance to our discussion is Wesley’s assertion that the works accomplished as a result of worldly duties are not the cause, but rather the means of knowing one’s state of grace. Material accomplishment, just as in Pietism, is regarded in Methodism as a sign of one’s state of grace, a sign that one is among the elect.

The Protestant Reformation, needless to say, is a historical event that took place five centuries ago. To be sure, individuals back then needed these ideas of Protestantism if they were to maintain their Christian faith in the conduct of their worldly affairs of life. But are these ideas of Protestantism no longer needed in today’s world of global capitalism where people from a variety of faith traditions, including market fundamentalism and secular rationalism, are engaged in economic activities? To the extent that those who have amassed enormous material wealth, those who occupy the top 0.1 percent of the world’s population, attribute their success to their faith, we can infer that Protestantism, though it may not go by that name, still plays an important role in the world of global capitalism.

1. Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, New York: Scribner and Sons, 1958, p. 105.
2. Moeller, J.A., Symbolism, London: Dolman, 1943, p. 115.
3. Weber, op.cit., p. 108.
4. ibid., p. 109.
5. ibid., p.115.
6. ibid., p. 130.

Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) is often called as the painter of the Reformation. As one who was a trusted friend of Martin Luther (1483-1546) and did numerous portraits of this Protestant reformer, Cranach certainly qualifies to that title. After a brief sojourn in Vienna, Cranach came to Wittenberg in 1505, appointed as the court painter by Frederick III of Saxony (1463-1525). Also known as Frederick the Wise, Frederick III founded University of Wittenberg in 1502, where Luther taught, promoted arts and sciences, and provided protection for Luther when Pope Leo X excommunicated him in 1521.

It is not just the sheer number of portraits of Luther, however, that qualifies Cranach to the title of the painter of the Reformation. While Cranach did paintings of religious themes like other painters of his day, what is striking about his portraits is the skillfulness with which he was able to portray the individuality of his subjects, which is quite remarkable in the days when no cameras were available. Thus, Cranach’s portraits of Luther ranges from an early portrait of Luther as a struggling Augustinian monk to a later portrait of him as a stern theologian, from a portrait of Luther as a contented lay person on the occasion of his marriage to Katharina von Bora to the portrait of him on his deathbed. Cranach’s portrayal of Hans Luther, Martin Luther’s father, was even more remarkable in capturing the coarseness of his character, which Kenneth Clark characterizes as “this Troll King, who seems to have grown out of the earth.”¹ He did come up out of the earth, so to speak, for Hans Luther was a miner before he became a businessman of a sort as the owner of several mines later in his life.

There is another sense in which Cranach can be called the painter of the Reformation, or the individual in the age of the Reformation. Cranach was active in civic affairs of Wittenberg and even served as its mayor. Later in his life, Cranach became a businessman and, in that new role, printed Luther’s German translation of the New Testament among other ventures. Converting his studio into a workshop that produced large quantities of paintings, engravings and prints with the help of Cranach the Younger (1515-1586) and other assistants, Cranach spent most of his time in managing his workshop. Cranach, by making works of art available to ordinary citizens, not just to powerful emperors and princes and rich patrons, converted artistic creation into a profitable business enterprise and became the wealthiest citizen of Wittenberg.

Cranach’s transformation from an artist into an entrepreneur is symbolic of the changing role of the artistic images in Christian churches. We may recall how the Church of Rome played an important role in promoting the arts as the patron of great artists. Julius II (Pope from 1503 to 1513) is known for employing Michelangelo (1475-1564) and Raphael (1483-1520) to convert St. Peter’s Cathedral from a simple basilica of worship into an ostentatious cathedral with magnificent art works. Clement VII (Pope from 1523 to 1534) commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Last Judgment. For the Church of Rome, the arts served as an effective didactic device to teach Christians about Christian doctrines. Even after the Reformation, such artists as Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) and El Greco (1541-1614) continued to create visual exhibitions of Christian doctrines.

In the Protestant West, on the other hand, artists gradually lost their sense of mission as the glorifiers of the Christian ideal with the gradual separation of the church from the political authority. In the hands of Cranach, for example, even a painting of a religious theme was filled with real-life figures. Thus, the Last Supper, the altarpiece Cranach created in 1547 at Stadtkirche in Wittenberg, shows Luther and Cranach the Younger in attendance, in addition to Jesus and his apostles. As with other human activities, arts were gradually converted into secular activities. The Reformation, with its emphasis on individual salvation, marks the start of the individual search for self for the people in the West. Besides Cranach, we may also note such artists as Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) and Hans Holbein (1497-1543), whose portraits are as realistic and remarkable as those by Cranach in capturing the individuality and the inner character of their subjects.

As for Cranach, we wonder what was behind his transformation from an artist into an entrepreneur. According to Luther, fulfilling worldly duties for the individual was, in fact, fulfilling the will of God. As Max Weber puts it in his authoritative work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, the individual was asked to strive to fulfill the will of God by restraining “his worldly activity within the limits imposed by his established station in life.”² By establishing himself as the manager of a workshop and devoting his time and energy to running it, Cranach could have found a new calling as an entrepreneur. Indeed, to the extent that making money from that business venture became his personal duty and devotion, Cranach may have transformed himself from a Lutheran into a Calvinist.

1. Clark, Kenneth, Civilisation, New York: Harper and Row, 1969, p. 158.
2. Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, New York: Scribner and Sons, 1958, p. 105.