Calling, love and the pursuit of wealth

Use in the book

The opening rebuke is addressed to alchemists and fruitless laboratory workers who neglect their proper responsibilities. The servant who leaves the harvest to tend another person’s sheep may still be working, but he is unfaithful to his assigned stewardship. The example makes misdirected labour, not merely laziness, the fault. Prince, preacher, lawyer, physician, craftsman and farmer are all subjected to the same question. (The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 2, The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 3.)

The excuses then borrow the language of future service. A prince imagines that gold-making will remove his subjects’ burdens and allow just government; professionals promise free service; other workers expect freedom from toil. The narrator reports these hopes “as they say”, not as his own programme. His reply asks why faithful service should wait for an uncertain achievement: every station, he says, is ordained by God, and properly performed duties already sustain common life. The catalogue of excuses continues the servant example’s argument about present responsibility. Its defence of social stations remains a historical theological premise, not a demonstration that every existing hierarchy is just (The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 3–The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 5).

The warning against idleness is paired with a warning against wealth’s moral risks. Possession of the stone might make a person self-satisfied and forgetful of God; the modal “might” is important. The text does not declare that all wealthy people are necessarily wicked. Even people living from investments have obligations to God, neighbour and self that rule out irresponsible dabbling. (The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 6, The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 7.)

The permission to inquire arrives only after this long warning. Those moved by God’s spirit to investigate and communicate natural wonders are encouraged, provided they examine themselves without self-love. The tests are concrete: struggle against evil will, love of God and neighbour, and willingness to help those in need. A small gift given from limited means can be as acceptable as a rich person’s much larger one. The value lies in sincere love, not sheer quantity. (The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 14, The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 15.)

The concluding natural priest is likewise a devout person who avoids great expense and attends carefully to nature. This exception prevents the opening denunciation from being read as a prohibition on every investigation. Conversely, it does not authorise every curious reader merely because the book promises knowledge. The contrast between wisdom-seeking and money-seeking remains explicit when the narrator withholds the final operation. (The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 56, The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 57.)

Places to read

1. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 1German“der Geitz so Ehre, als Geld belanget” The diagnosis includes ambition for honour.
2. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 1German“nicht aus Liebe zur Weißheit, sondern des Reichthumbs wegen” The contrast concerns motives of pursuit.
3. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 2German“zu Natur-Priestern nicht beruffen” The opening audience is denied a special natural vocation.
4. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 3German“mit Unterlaß seines Berufes” The servant’s work is wrong because it neglects his assigned service.
5. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 4German“wie sie sagen” The promises of future piety are attributed to the seekers.
6. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 5German“aller Standt von Gotten verordnet” The reply rests on the text’s theological account of social station.
7. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 6German“möchtestu vielleicht” The possibility of corruption by wealth is not an assertion of necessity.
8. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 7German“GOtt, seinem Nechsten und sich zu dienen” Obligation continues even without the need to earn a wage.
9. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 8German“Ehr- und Geld-Geitz” Repentance includes ambition for honour as well as money.
10. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 14German“ungefärbter sanffter Liebe” The positive exception specifies the investigator’s manner.
11. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 14German“in wahrer Demuth” Humility accompanies the alleged calling.
12. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 14German“den Nechsten als sich selbsten” Neighbour-love is a practical test, not only a declared intention.
13. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 15German“Wenn sie sothanig leben” Permission and assurance are conditional on that way of life.
14. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 56German“zum Natur-Priester innerlich” The final invitation repeats the restricted vocation.
15. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 57German“vor die Weißheit- und nicht geldsuchende” The intended audience explains the limit of disclosure.

Translation in this edition

“Calling” preserves the vocational force of Beruf; it is more than personal interest. “Priest of nature” is a role defined by inward divine calling in the work, not evidence of a named institutional office. The translation distinguishes speakers in the imagined excuses, and retains the conditional permission given later. The rebuke of selfish desire should not be confused with a claim that natural knowledge is reserved for the financially powerful: the argument repeatedly values modest means and sincere small gifts.

The phrase wie sie sagen, “as they say”, marks the distance between an excuse and the narrator’s endorsement (The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 4). A summary that simply repeats the promised benefits of gold-making would lose that distance.

The permission in The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 15 begins “If they live in this way”. Its condition reaches back to the concrete tests of humility and help given in the previous paragraph. “Calling” is therefore explained through a manner of living, not authenticated solely by the claimant’s conviction that a vocation is present.

Printed forms

Beruf

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 3 — 1682 p. 6. “mit Unterlaß seines Berufes”

Calling, the ordinary duty which the irresponsible seeker abandons.

Natur-Priestern

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 2 — 1682 pp. 5–6. “zu Natur-Priestern nicht beruffen”

Priests of nature, a service to which the rebuked laboratory seekers have not been called.

Natur-Priester

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 56 — 1682 p. 36. “zum Natur-Priester innerlich”

Priest of nature, the singular role to which a devout investigator may be inwardly called.

Geitz

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 1 — 1682 p. 5. “der Geitz so Ehre, als Geld belanget”

Greed, explicitly directed to honour as well as money.

Liebe

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 14 — 1682 pp. 13–14. “ungefärbter sanffter Liebe”

Sincere gentle love, a qualification for faithful natural inquiry.

Demuth

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 14 — 1682 pp. 13–14. “in wahrer Demuth”

True humility, another condition of an authorised vocation.

Nechsten

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 14 — 1682 pp. 13–14. “den Nechsten als sich selbsten”

The neighbour, the person to be loved and served rather than used for ambition.

Reichthumb

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 1 — 1682 p. 5. “des Reichthumbs wegen”

Wealth as the mistaken motive opposed to love of wisdom.

Ehr- und Geld-Geitz

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 8 — 1682 pp. 9–10.

Greed for honour and money, named as a misuse of one’s time in the inward exhortation.

Related words and expressions

• Honest increase of an entrusted gift
• Grace-directed use of the secret
• Fear of God, humility and gentleness
• The charitable value of a small coin
• Idleness and neglected service
• Station in life and its duty
• The talent entrusted for a calling
• Paul’s tent-cloths and manual service
• Unfaithful stewardship