Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

158 THE ENVY OF THE GODS AND THE CONCEPT OF FATE
a turning away from the irrationality of this guilt concept. Although
Protestantism retains the dogma of original sin, it provides the opportunity,
particularly in Calvinism with its division into the 'elect' and the
'rejected,' for differentiation and for constructive self-comparison with
others. The growing emphasis on rationality, work and success demands
aggressiveness without guilt. This trend has been increased by capitalism
and technology.
Whereas previously work was seen and experienced as a God-inflicted
punishment, as drudgery which enables us to expiate the pressing
sense of guilt, toil and work now become idealized. They are the road to
accomplishment and distinction. Piers writes: 'The beggar in early
Christianity could be God's child, a successful penitent, and even
glorified as saint: in Protestant acquisitive status society, he "ought to be
ashamed." ,28
Religion without envy
. Max Weber distinguishes between the two basically different attitudes
that may be assumed by a supernatural power in a given religion towards
the good fortune and well-being of the believer: (1) its joyful unenvying
recognition, or (2) the envy of gods or demons.
In spite of, not through, the gods, and frequently in opposition to them,
the hero maintains a more than ordinary stature. In this the Homeric and
part of the ancient Indian epic is characteristically opposed both to the
bureaucratic-Chinese and the priestly-Judaic historiography, in that in the
latter the 'legitimacy' of good luck as God's reward for approved virtue is far
more strongly in evidence. On the other hand, the connection between
misfortune and the anger and envy of demons or gods is extremely widespread.
In this connection· Weber recalls that anyone inflicted with an infirmity,
or sorely tried by fate, is regarded in nearly all popular religions,
that of ancient Judaism, and in particular that of modern China, as one
smitten by divine anger, who may not consort with the godly and
fortunate before the face of God. Indeed, in 'almost every ethical form of
28 Op. cit .• pp. 35 f.