The Protestant work ethic is a myth; it's better reframed as the Faustian work ethic because as you say the Catholic Monastic orders possessed it, none more so than the Jesuits. What I think is going on is simply the ethnic split between northern and southern Europeans, and the work ethic is best explained by climatic factors, as well as the rise to power of the urban middle classes in the 16th and 17th centuries. Presbyterians are notably austere and serious because they are/were Scottish, and what we call Catholic laziness is simply a Mediterranean climatic reality.
The same movement (but with very different cultural assumptions and results) in the middle eastern culture eventually led to the rise of Islam (the Puritans of the Magi) but the split was reversed, with the Monophysite and Jewish South along with Nestorian and Zorastarian East (whose own differences eventually led to the next split of Sunni and Shiite) violently confirming the ruptures of the three councils and breaking away from the Greek Orthodox North and converting en masse to Islam. It isn't a coincidence that the rule of the Protectorate in Cromwells England feels like Sharia law.
Monasteries accumulated land because, unlike other owners, monasteries do not die. There were not any corporations - but there were. Religious houses and guilds could last for centuries, and the ones that did were precisely the ones that made more than they spent. Mostly in land, because there were not any trust funds. Land, and its rent, was how you set up anything you wanted to last.
Want to endow a hospital? Donate land and start a monastery. Four centuries later...
Drive through any medium size town today; imagine that all of the hospitals, schools, libraries, shelters, nursing homes, food pantries, and every one of the churches were all owned by the same legal entity. Pretty rich, right? But not really, because to free up all of that wealth, you have to break all of those thing up, and then spend centuries working out how to do every thing that used to be Christian charity. But at least those lazy monks had to get real jobs, and knock off that incessant droning...
My take on the prosperity gospel has always been that the proponents have to explain to congregants why it is that all of the full time church workers are filthy rich somehow. You do not see the prosperity gospel preached in churches with honest accounting, no matter the denomination.
Great article. Finally, someone beyond one wonderful Polish right-winger finally talks about this issue.
The Protestant work ethic is a myth; it's better reframed as the Faustian work ethic because as you say the Catholic Monastic orders possessed it, none more so than the Jesuits. What I think is going on is simply the ethnic split between northern and southern Europeans, and the work ethic is best explained by climatic factors, as well as the rise to power of the urban middle classes in the 16th and 17th centuries. Presbyterians are notably austere and serious because they are/were Scottish, and what we call Catholic laziness is simply a Mediterranean climatic reality.
The same movement (but with very different cultural assumptions and results) in the middle eastern culture eventually led to the rise of Islam (the Puritans of the Magi) but the split was reversed, with the Monophysite and Jewish South along with Nestorian and Zorastarian East (whose own differences eventually led to the next split of Sunni and Shiite) violently confirming the ruptures of the three councils and breaking away from the Greek Orthodox North and converting en masse to Islam. It isn't a coincidence that the rule of the Protectorate in Cromwells England feels like Sharia law.
I think the Jesuits are priests, not monks or even friars like the Dominicans. They were definitely very persistent though
Monasteries accumulated land because, unlike other owners, monasteries do not die. There were not any corporations - but there were. Religious houses and guilds could last for centuries, and the ones that did were precisely the ones that made more than they spent. Mostly in land, because there were not any trust funds. Land, and its rent, was how you set up anything you wanted to last.
Want to endow a hospital? Donate land and start a monastery. Four centuries later...
Drive through any medium size town today; imagine that all of the hospitals, schools, libraries, shelters, nursing homes, food pantries, and every one of the churches were all owned by the same legal entity. Pretty rich, right? But not really, because to free up all of that wealth, you have to break all of those thing up, and then spend centuries working out how to do every thing that used to be Christian charity. But at least those lazy monks had to get real jobs, and knock off that incessant droning...
My take on the prosperity gospel has always been that the proponents have to explain to congregants why it is that all of the full time church workers are filthy rich somehow. You do not see the prosperity gospel preached in churches with honest accounting, no matter the denomination.
Great article, Thank you.
Surprisingly interesting topic