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privileged strata. The peasants, on the other hand, are much more remote from this "ethical" notion of
compensation and do not acquire it until the magic in which they are engaged has been eliminated by
other forces. By contrast, the crafts-person is very frequently active in effecting the elimination of this
very process of magic. It follows that the belief in ethical compensation is even more alien to warriors
and to political capitalists who have economic interests in war and in power politics. These groups are
the least compatible to the ethical and rational elements in any religion.
(E.4.g) Development of Citizenry Rationalism
To be sure, the crafts-person was deeply involved in magical manipulation in the early stages of
occupational differentiation. Every specialized "art" that is uncommon and not widely disseminated is
regarded as a magical charisma, either personal or, more generally, hereditary, the acquisition and
maintenance of which is guaranteed by magical means. Other elements of this early belief are that the
bearers of this charisma are set off by taboos, occasionally of a totemic nature, from the community of
ordinary people (peasants), and frequently that they are to be excluded from the ownership of land. One
final element of this early belief in the magical charisma of every specialized art must be mentioned
here. Wherever crafts had remained in the hands of ancient groups possessing raw materials, who had
first offered their arts as "intruders" in the community and later offered their craftsmanship as individual
strangers settled within the community, the belief in the magical nature of special arts condemned such
groups to pariah status and stereotyped with magic their manipulations and their technology.
But wherever this magical condition has once been broken through (this happens most readily in newly
settled cities), the effect of the transformation may be that the crafts-person will learn to think about his
labor and the small trader will learn to think about his enterprise much more rationally than any peasant
thinks. The craftsman in particular will have time and opportunity for reflection during his work in many
instances, especially in occupations which are primarily of the indoor variety in our climate, for
example, in the textile trades, which therefore are strongly infused with sectarian religiosity. This is true
to some extent even for the workers in modern factories with mechanized weaving, but very much more
true for the weaver of the past.
Wherever the attachment to purely magical or ritualistic notions has been broken by prophets or
reformers, there has hence been a tendency for crafts-persons and petty-citizen toward a (often
primitively) rationalistic ethical and religious view of life. Furthermore, their very occupational
specialization makes them the bearers of an integrated "conduct of life" of a distinctive kind. Yet there is
certainly no uniform determination of religion by these general conditions in the life of crafts-persons
and petty-citizens. Thus the small businessmen of China, though thoroughly "calculating," are not the
carriers of a rational religion, nor, so far as we know, are the Chinese crafts-persons. At best, they follow
the Buddhist teaching of karma, in addition to magical notions. What is primary in their case is the
absence of an ethically rationalized religion, and indeed this appears to have influenced the limited
rationalism of their technology. This strikes us again and again. The mere existence of crafts-persons
and petty-citizens has never sufficed to generate an ethical religiosity, even of the most general type. We
have seen an example of this in India, [60] where the caste taboo and the belief in transmigration of soul
influenced and stereotyped the ethics of the crafts-person strata. Only communal religion, especially one
of the rational and ethical type, could conceivably win followers easily, particularly among the petty-
citizens, and then, given certain circumstances, exert a lasting influence on the conduct of life of these
groups. This is what actually happened.
(E.5) Slave And Propertyless
Finally, the strata of the economically most disprivileged, such as slaves and free day-laborers, have
hitherto never been the bearers of a distinctive type of religion. In the ancient Christian communities the
slaves belonged to the petty-citizen. The Hellenistic slaves and the servants of Narcissus mentioned in
the Letter to the Romans [61] were either relatively well-placed and independent domestic officials or
service personnel belonging to very wealthy persons. But in the majority of instances they were
independent crafts-persons who paid tribute to their master and hoped to save enough from their
earnings to effect their liberation, which was the case throughout Antiquity and in Russia in the
nineteenth century. In other cases they were well-treated slaves of the state.
The religion of Mithra also included numerous adherents from slaves, according to the inscriptions. The
Delphic Apollo (and presumably many another god) apparently functioned as a savings bank for slaves,
attractive because of its sacred inviolability, and the slaves bought "freedom" from their masters by the
use of these savings. This might be Paul's image of the redemption of Christians through the blood of
their savior that they might be freed from enslavement of the law and sin. [62] If this is true, [63] it
shows how much the missionary of early Christianity aspired for the unfree petty-citizen who followed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]