1. Of the ancient languages, only Hebrew has any similar concept. Most of all in the word hkalm . It is used for sacerdotal functions (Exodus 35:21; Nehemiah 11: 22, 1 Chronicles 9:13; 1 Chronicles 23: 4; 1 Chronicles 26:30), for business in the service of the king (especially 1 Samuel 8:16; 1 Chronicles 4:23; 1 Chronicles 29:6), for the service of a royal official (Esther 3:9; Esther 9:3), of a superintendent of labour (2 Kings 12:12), of a slave (Genesis 39:11), of labour in the fields (1 Chronicles 27:26), of craftsmen (Exodus 31:5; Exodus 35:21; 1 Kings 7:14), for traders (Psalms 107:23), and for worldly activity of any kind in the passage, Sirach 11:20, to be discussed later. The word is derived from the root ral , to send, thus meaning originally a task. That it originated in the ideas current in Solomon's bureaucratic kingdom of serfs (Fronstaat), built up as it was according to the Egyptian model, seems evident from the above references. In meaning, however, as I learn from A. Merx, this root concept had become lost even in antiquity. The word came to be used for any sort of labour, and in fact became fully as colourless as the German Beruf; with which it shared the fate of being used primarily for mental and not manual functions. The expression (qx), assignment, task, lesson, which also occurs in Sirach 11:20, and is translated in the Septuagint with diayhkh, is also derived from the terminology of the servile bureaucratic regime of the time, as is owyrbd (Exodus 5:13, 14), where the Septuagint also uses diayhkh for task. In Sirach 43:10 it is rendered in the Septuagint with kriua. In Sirach 11:20 it is evidently used to signify the fulfillment of God's commandments, being thus related to our calling. On this passage in Jesus Sirach reference may here be made to Smend's wellknown book on Jesus Sirach, and for the words diayhkh, ergon, ponov, to his Index zur Weisheit des Jesus Sirach (Berlin, 1907). As is well known, the Hebrew text of the Book of Sirach was lost, but has been rediscovered by Schechter, and in part supplemented by quotations from the Talmud. Luther did not possess it, and these two Hebrew concepts could not have had any influence on his use of language. (See below on Proverbs 22:29)

In Greek there is no term corresponding in ethical connotation to the German or English words at all. Where Luther, quite in the spirit of the modern usage (see below), translates Jesus Sirach 11:20, 21, bleibe in deinem Beruf; the Septuagint has at one point ergon, at the other, which however seems to be an entirely corrupt passage, ponov (the Hebrew original speaks of the shining of divine help!). Otherwise in antiquity ta proshkoito is used in the general sense of duties. In the works of the Stoics kamalos occasionally carries similar connotations, though its linguistic source is indifferent (called to my attention by A. Dieterich). All other expressions (such as taxiv, 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 dicendit), 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 (Vulgate Sirach 11:21) 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 hkalm 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 klhsiv of the New Testament, the call of the Gospel to eternal salvation, which in the Vulgate is vocatio [Vulgate Romans 11:29]. Strange to say, Brentano, op. cit., maintains that this fact, which I have myself adduced to defend my view, is evidenced for the existence of the concept of the calling in the sense which it had later, before the Reformation. But it is nothing of the kind. klhsiv had to be translated by vocatio. But where and when in the Middle Ages was it used in our sense? The fact of this translation, and in spite of it, the lack of any application of the word to worldly callings is what is decisive. Chiamamento is used in this manner along with vocazione in the Italian Bible translation of the fifteenth century, which is printed in the Collezione di opere inedite e rare (Bologna, 1887), while the modern Italian translations use the latter alone. On the other hand, the words used in the Romance languages for calling in the external worldly sense of regular acquisitive activity carry, as appears from all the dictionaries and from a report of my friend Professor Baist (of Freiburg), no religious connotation whatever. This is so no matter whether they are derived from ministerium or officium, which originally had a certain religious colouring, or from ars, professio and implicare (impeigo), from which it has been entirely absent from the beginning. The passages in Jesus Sirach mentioned above, where Luther used Beruf; are translated: in French, v. 20, office; v. 21, labeur (Calvinistic translation); Spanish, v. 20, obra; V. 21, lugar (following the Vulgate); recent translations, posto (Protestant). The Protestants of the Latin countries, since they were minorities, did not exercise, possibly without even making the attempt, such a creative influence over their respective languages as Luther did over the still less highly rationalized (in an academic sense) German official language.

2. On the other hand, the Augsburg Confession only contains the idea implicitly and but partially developed. Article XVI (ed. by Kolde, p. 43) teaches: "Meanwhile it (the Gospel) does not dissolve the ties of civil or domestic economy, but strongly enjoins us to maintain them as ordinances of God and in such ordinances (ein jeder nach seinem Beruf) to exercise charity." (Translated by Rev. W. H. Teale, Leeds, 1 842.)

The conclusion drawn, that one must obey authority, shows that here Beruf is thought of, at least primarily, as an objective order in the sense of the passage in 1 Corinthians 7:20.

And Article XXVII (Kolde, p. 83) speaks of Beruf (Latin in vocatione sua) only in connection with estates ordained by God: clergy, magistrates, princes, lords, etc. But even this is true only of the German version of the Konkordienbuch, while in the German Ed. princeps the sentence is left out.

Only in Article XXVI (Kolde, p. 81) is the word used in a sense which at least includes our present meaning: "that he did chastise his body, not to deserve by that discipline remission of sin, but to have his body in bondage and apt to spiritual things, and to do his calling". Translated by Richard Taverner, Philadelphia Publications Society, 1888. (Latin juxta vocationem suam.)