宗教倫理の担い手たち : ウェーバー宗教倫理論研究ノート(四)
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概要
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In Part 3 of this series of papers, we focused our attention on Weber's arguments about the relationship between religious ethics and intellectual rationalism. According to his explanation, although there is a very strained relationship between them, the former, notwithstanding its irrationality, establishes a rather intimate relationship with the latter. That is why religious intellectuals, including priests, prophets and laymen, did their best to create or construct 'rational' apologetics and dogmas. In this paper, we consider Weber's sociological analyses of two types of religious leaders, namely, priests and prophets. Weber states that priests originated in the 'Zauberer' or magicians who conducted magical rituals, and forced spirituals to have mercy on the people. Indeed, we cannot clearly distinguish priests from magicians because the former gradually emerged out of the latter, and there are quite a few intermediate persons who we may call 'magical priests' in reality. However, Weber divides them into two categories according to their characteristics. As is well known, one of the most important standards for distinguishing between them, is that priests preside over divine services ('Gottesdienst') and magicians conduct 'Gotteszwang,' namely, forcing the gods to grant the various requests of people. Weber stresses that priests perform their duties regularly and systematically as the functionaries of religious organizations. In addition, priests played an important role in the rationalization of religious life and ethics. Indeed, they were barriers to the development of practical rationalism because of their vested interests in religious communities. However, as they were religious intellectuals responsible for keeping law and order, they contributed to the formation of religious 'ethics,' not simply 'ethos,' or practical attitudes in life, but 'ethical compendia' based on metaphysical thought. They taught laymen that people should obey the rules of divine law in order to obtain religious salvation. Weberalso discusses the prophets who contributed largely to the rationalization of religious ethics. First, a 'prophet' is defined as the person who has certain supernatural 'charisma' and delivers divine orders before an audience to fulfil his own 'mission.' Second, he acts and speaks without any monetary or other substantial rewards; this is one of most important characteristics of the prophet, and one which distinguishes him from a priest. There are also other types of intellectual leaders who are similar to but different from prophets, namely, ancient lawmakers (Solon), philosophical teachers of ethics (Socrates and Plato) and religious mystagogues. However, according to Weber, none of them are qualified as prophets. Last but not least are problems of 'meaning.' As stated before, one of the most important and serious problems for religious believers was the 'meaning' of life and the world. Therefore, many pious people, including priests and laymen, were very eager to find that meaning. But, here we see that prophets as the 'religious virtuosi' were the first to get the meaning and a unified view of life through divine revelation. Indeed, prophets organized various styles of life into a systematic whole from their viewpoint of reality. However, this 'structure of meaning' was not accomplished only by prophets, but also by priests and other intellectual laymen. To add to this, it was necessary that 'religiously unmusical' masses cooperate with these 'virtuosi.'
- 東京女子大学の論文
- 2003-09-22