ABSTRACT
WEBER'S WORK on the sociology of religion falls into three principal periods. In 1904 and 1905, he dealt with the rela tionship of the Protestant sects-especially Calvinism-to the origin of the Western capitalist spirit, and from then until 1910 most of his work on religion consisted of defending his thesis against its critics. In the latter part of 1910, a second phase began with his sharp distinction between asceticism and mysticism at the first German sociology congress. In 1911-13, Weber, incorporating the asceticismmysticism dichotomy, wrote a systematic sociology of religion for his massive compendium, Wirtschaft und Geselfochaft, in which he attempted to pull together four themes into a study of some 170 pages: an explanation of the origin of the religious phenomenon; an extended polemic with the theses of Marx and Nietzsche regarding the relationship of ideas, psychology and material interests; the far-ranging use of historical examples from both Eastern and Western religions to give evidence for his arguments; and the use of the cate gories of ascetic and mystical religiosity as ideal types to give an appearance of organization to the whole. The rich-
ness induces intellectual exhaustion, and it is perfectly under standable that in his lifetime Weber never attempted to publish this material.
