Volume 12, Issue 2

One of the most striking and yet neglected strands in Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic  is the evident interest it displays in the affinity between Puritanism and Judaism. Whilst it would be an exaggeration to describe this as a principal theme, still it is one which recurs, and leads to one of those little essays masquerading as footnotes that highlight points in the text where Weber’s interests exceed the bounds of his avowed historical subject [XXI.91 n. 49] – the formation of an ascetic Protestant ethic in the 17 th century and its contribution to the formation of the modern Occidental “spirit” of capitalism. On the face of it Judaism can have very little to do with 17 th century Puritanism, whilst in the original text of 1904–5 Weber says nothing directly about the possible links between Judaism and capitalist behaviour, though this would seem the most obvious way to introduce this subject. (The omission is to some extent repaired in the final 1920 text, but clearly this does not explain the original oddity.) [181 n. 2] The sense that Weber has diverged a long way from his “real” subject is greatly enhanced when we see that the Judaism he is most interested in is ‘Talmudic Judaism’ [XX.45; XXI.90] – an entity which cries out for definition and clarification. On the other hand it is well-known that Weber was deeply interested in the study of Judaism, as is evident (to take the best known example) from his book-length study of ‘Ancient Judaism’ (composed 1916–18) within the series of the ‘Economic Ethics of the World Religions’ – and even this was only a fragment of the ground he wished to cover. Plainly there are hidden currents at work here, and in charting them we may cast light both on Weber’s thinking about Judaism, and also on the construction of the Protestant Ethic  : to what extent was it confined to ‘the Protestant ethic and the “spirit” of capitalism’? and to what extent was it, not merely incomplete but, an “open-plan” text which tacitly embraced a much wider subject area?