Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority

CHAPTER 1

AUTHORITY AND LEGITIMACY

INTRODUCTION

In the broadest sense this study is concerned with the problem of authority and holds that authority is an interpretation of power. While the essay itself is confined to an analysis of Paul’s apostolic authority, it comes from and hopefully will say something about a wider concern.

For the student of the earliest Christian history and literature the problem of authority is very real even if its discussion must often be more oblique than direct. Renewed interest in such questions as the relationship of heresy to orthodoxy in the early Church is partial testimony to the centrality of this problem.¹ Similar historical problems cluster around the use of that convenient if imprecise term Frühkatholizismus, the perimeter of which we are still trying to define.² Nor is the question of heresy and orthodoxy merely a matter of historical interest. It has manifold theological implications which become clearer as rigidly dogmatic positions soften.¹ In fact, the theological questions raised by Christianity’s development of a canon of scripture are even more difficult to solve than the historical questions. In this situation historians and literary critics find themselves aware of the accidental and occasional nature of canonical limits, unable to translate directly to their own work the canon’s intended function of authority.

Certainly the matter of authority, even to limit our discussion to the Church, is not confined to scholarly interest. One need only glance at the mood of Roman Catholic thought to see that the oldest and most stable sector of the Christian community is in the process of rethinking the problem of authority. This has already come to expression in such tangible forms as Vatican II and its wake, and is exemplified in the recent controversy on birth control. Particularly in the case of the council, Catholic thought has raised questions which drive all Biblical scholars directly back to their sources.²

By no later than the middle of the second century the Christian Church had begun to sketch out the institutions of authority on which it would place particular reliance. Chief among these was the canon of scripture itself and the apostolic tradition which in its broadest sense was an appeal to the apostles as a designated group of authorized bearers of tradition. Although in retrospect this move toward the self-conscious explication of the framework of authority seems early enough, behind it lay a century of Christian thought, history and literature. In that century, which we can only dimly see, Paul played a central if not singular role. Whether the collection of his letters is testimony to his importance or more nearly the occasion of it for those who lacked immediate knowledge of the early days of the Church, that collection also thrust Paul into a position of authority for a later age. Thus, if one turned to scripture or the apostolic tradition, one could scarcely escape Paul.

For the period of Paul’s activity the status of those developing criteria is uncertain. If he was useful for fighting heresy in a later age, it nevertheless remains true that he struggled against opposition in one form or another in his own age without the benefit of such specific institutional forms of authority as later became available. And struggle he did. In an earlier age F. C. Baur could shock the theological world by suggesting the polarity of thought within early Christianity centering around the figures of Peter and Paul. Baur’s rather simplistic scheme of development has long since been abandoned, while the idea of dissension and disagreement within earliest Christianity is hardly thought novel. Today, one is more likely to be shocked by the plethora of suggestions concerning Paul’s ‘opponents’ in Galatia, Corinth, and elsewhere. If scholars have supplied more opponents than even Paul could have managed, the trend of this investigation is nevertheless clear and correct – Paul’s letters are to be understood against the background of their specific occasion, and that occasion is more than a few times essentially polemical.

The effect of all of this is clear. When the Church made Paul a ‘catholic’ theologian and took him into its baseline of orthodoxy it incorporated him into the structures of ecclesiastical tradition and authority. Yet we must try to see the historical reality first and that reality is specific, occasional and, thus, anything but theologically catholic. In the process of re-historicizing Paul we have become increasingly aware of how he was engaged in controversy before the days of formalized institutions of authority, even before the days of ‘heresy and orthodoxy’. How then, and why, did Paul proceed? What gave him his authority? How did he understand and exercise it?

A simple answer might be that Paul shows the embryonic forms of authority which were to develop more fully in later generations. That answer would be correct in some sense, but it suffers from being general and reducing the problem of authority in the first generations to its least common denominator.

No text can be read in an interpretive vacuum, and so it will be necessary to make plain the historical and conceptual presuppositions which put us at our starting point. That point, again, is the statement that authority is the interpretation of power.

APOSTOLIC AUTHORITY AND APOSTOLIC LEGITIMACY

In more than a century of critical discussion, one vexing and intractable problem offered by the New Testament and other early Christian literature has been ‘the name and office of the apostle’, to use J. B. Lightfoot’s phrase from an influential definition of the problem in his commentary on Galatians.¹ One might hope that a century would prove sufficient time for solving so specific a problem. It has not. Although in the history of scholarship there have been periods of general agreement on the nature of the problem and the directions in which a solution should be sought, not even that is true currently. From the manifold literature which has appeared on this subject just within the past few years it seems that there is agreement only in rejecting the last discernible consensus. Beyond that everything is fluid.

Both the persistence of the problem and the differences among proposed solutions are instructive. So central is the figure of the apostle to the missionary growth and the historical continuity of early Christianity that his identity remains a matter of primary importance for both the theologian and the historian.

In what may be called the first full flush of ‘catholic’ Christianity, at least one writer was quite clear about the origin and functions of apostles:

The Apostles received the Gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus the Christ was sent from God. The Christ, therefore, is from God and the Apostles from Christ. In both ways, then, they were in accordance with the appointed order of God’s will. Having, therefore, received their commands, and being fully assured by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with faith confirmed by the word of God, they went forth in the assurance of the Holy Spirit preaching the good news [εὐαγγελιζόμενοι] that the Kingdom of God is coming. They preached from district to district, and from city to city, and they appointed their first converts, testing them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons of the future believers. And this was no new method, for many years before had bishops and deacons been written of; for the scripture says thus in one place ‘I will establish their bishops in righteousness, and their deacons in faith.’¹

The author is Clement, bishop of Rome, writing to the Corinthian Christians at the end of the first century.² He locates the apostles not only in history as successors to Jesus’ preaching mission, but also in what might be called salvation-history since ‘they were in accordance with the appointed order of God’s will’. They are those who received commands from Jesus and have been granted a resurrection appearance. They speak God’s word and appear under the aegis of the Holy Spirit. Just as their relationship to Jesus is analogous to Jesus’ relationship to God, so they are part of the divine economy as testified to by the concluding quotation from Isaiah 60: 17.³

Clement’s genetic description is important not for its simplicity or for some apparent plausibility, but because it serves the central purposes of his letter. Here we have channel markings designed to establish the length and breadth of that pure stream of tradition and authority by which the Church proceeds and by which it is sustained. Fractious and insubordinate elements in the Corinthian community need reminding of this. One way of reminding them is to stress the historical connections and implications. Clement was himself quite well aware that he was heir to this apostolic tradition, as were those in Corinth whose hands he wished to uphold. Only in this way could legitimate leadership be recognized. But the breadth of the channel is even more important than its length. The question of authority is even more central, if also more implicit, than the question of legitimacy. The very fact that a bishop of Rome can presume the authority to write to the Corinthian Christians to admonish them for failure to heed their own duly constituted leaders shows how central is the whole question of authority in this appeal to the apostles. Furthermore, it is implicit in Clement’s approach that authority is not merely a matter of historical continuity. It has a theological dimension as well.

In short, what Clement says about the authorized leaders of the Church, the bearers of its tradition, involves assumptions about both their authority and their legitimacy, though he does not make that distinction clear. On the contrary, the concepts of authority and legitimacy have been collapsed and equated. This is true not only of the apostles, figures from the past, but also of the bishops, their successors in the present. In both cases, authority is implicitly derived from the understanding of legitimacy. Such is the case where ‘for the first time we find a clear and explicit declaration of the doctrine of apostolic succession’.¹ But what of an earlier stage where such succession cannot yet be presupposed? What is the relationship of apostolic authority to legitimacy when the scope and role of the apostolic ‘office’ is not yet so clearly defined?

Whatever the problems involved in Clement’s view, its scheme has had a remarkably tight hold on the way in which even critical scholarship has addressed itself to the question of apostolic authority. Here too the matter of authority has not always been carefully enough distinguished from that of legitimacy. Perhaps this is because it was so long assumed that the apostles were to be identified with the Twelve. When Lightfoot opened up new paths by sharply distinguishing between these two groups, he began what has become a continuing search for two or more ideal types of the early ‘apostle’. While recent study tends to see the role and status of the Twelve as problematical, most scholarship still seeks to reconcile what Lightfoot set asunder by insisting that the primary question of Pauline apostleship is the question of Paul’s relationship to that group. So the key problems have long been those of relationship: of the Twelve to the ‘apostles’; of the Twelve to the larger company of disciples; of Paul to the apostles in Acts, etc. In each case the common thread is the question of the appropriateness of the term ‘apostle’ to one or another group. Understandably, a great deal of attention has been focused on the linguistic problem of the derivation and original meaning of the term ἀπόστολος in hopes that clarity about its antecedent use might elucidate early Christian understanding of the office.

This raises a serious question with which we must be concerned at the outset. Is it clear that the sharp definition of an ‘office’, the precise description of role and status, is the first question to be settled in coming to understand the role of the early Christian apostle? To find the coordinates by which an ‘office’ of the apostle might be located will help illuminate the matter of apostolic identity, but only from one direction. It helps us determine who is and who is not rightfully called an apostle. It approaches the question of identity exclusively through the category of legitimacy. But as we shall see, legitimacy and authority are not the same thing, and the primary question is not who is an apostle, or even how an apostle, but why an apostle and how does he lay hold on and exercise his authority.

In all of this the centrality of Paul is unmistakable. His unambiguous description of himself by the term ‘apostle’ and the very volume and style of his writings makes him the most accessible specimen to be found in the New Testament. But early foreclosure on the broad topic of Paul’s understanding of his apostolic authority, by substituting for it the question of his legitimacy, has diminished rather than enhanced the possibility of reading the fullest possible apostolic configuration out of Paul’s letters. Thus it is to this question that this book is directed.

Paul’s authority is difficult to isolate for a number of reasons. The modern perception of authority is not necessarily the first century’s perception. We can see this in even a very specialized case like that of ecclesiastical offices. To take one simple example of an important difference, Paul does not share the later notion of the Church as composed of clergy and laity, each with unique responsibilities. Where he distinguishes among various ‘gifts’ he also stresses the unity of the one Spirit; when he speaks of the variety of service he emphasizes the singularity of the one Lord (I Cor. 12: 4). It is true that God has appointed in the Church ‘first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracle workers, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues’ (I Cor. 12: 28). But Paul does not elaborate on these functions, and his purpose again is to stress the unity of the Church within the plurality of its members and their gifts: ‘Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it’ (I Cor. 12: 27).

Obviously we must be clear about what we mean by apostolic authority. Paul’s letters reflect a situation in which the Christian apostle is already something of an authority figure. When Paul feels called on to explain his claim to apostleship he implicitly justifies his claim to authority at the same time. In that sense, the position in I Clement is an accurate reflection of an earlier situation. Nevertheless, the primary problem with which Clement wrestles is authority as it has become embodied in legitimate forms. Would it therefore be more appropriate to try to distinguish Paul’s quest for or defense of apostolic legitimacy? If he were only challenged on this point, the answer would be affirmative. The case for making some clear distinction between apostolic authority and legitimacy would seem to be set, in part, by the important and difficult material in II Cor. 10–13. This is a rich text for examining the problem of authority, but the material is found in a context where the issue of legitimacy is itself a primary fact. There we shall see that Paul’s reply to one kind of attack on his credentials must turn to the root question of authority. By Paul’s own testimony the two matters are closely related.

Yet not every reference to his apostolic status demands such a defensive interpretation. The problem is made even more complex by the fact that the whole question of the background and development of the apostolate is shrouded in sketchy sources. What we do know is that Paul thought himself to be within the limits of the apostolic circle, whatever its diameter. And we know that others were able to cast doubt on that claim.

These are the rough coordinates for our investigation. The problem is not simply to discover the answer to our question of apostolic authority, but to frame appropriately the question itself. What is the actual authority upon which Paul relies? Is it apostolic authority simply because Paul is an apostle, i.e., meets external criteria of legitimacy? Or is it the case that his authority is apostolic in the broader sense that Paul thinks that his own understanding is normative for all apostles?

There is the further matter of the existence of the letters themselves from the apostle’s hands. The whole Pauline corpus¹ is testimony to the fact that Paul had something to say to ‘his’ communities and presumed both his right to say it and his effectiveness in doing so. In that sense authority is presumed. Only two of the seven undisputed letters are not addressed to Churches with which Paul has already had a sustained relationship (Romans and Philemon). In the others he discusses all manner of affairs and problems. This must presuppose some understanding of his right and ability to do so. But only at specific points does he defend his apostolic credentials; such a concern is not in itself the rationale for the custom of writing to these Churches. Nor is this extensive pattern of communication characteristic of the work of an apostle. The authority behind the letters is the authority behind Paul’s apostolic claim. It is that authority about which we are inquiring.

Authority and legitimacy are twin motifs, integrally related even while they seem to demand sharper definition and distinction from one another. Our concern is primarily with the ingredients of the former. To plot its locus we must make some preliminary conceptual distinctions.

WHAT IS AUTHORITY?

Authority is different from its agents. There are people who are ‘authorities’ on gardening, polo or Egyptology because they possess acknowledged competence in these fields, but competence is not authority. As Bierstedt points out, our language sometimes plays tricks on us in this regard, as when we speak of the ‘competent authorities’. But ‘superior knowledge, superior skill, and superior competence need not be involved in the exercise of competent authority’.¹ The corporate officer who is ‘competent’ to sign executive orders is not competent because he is more skilled than others in the art of signing. What we mean by referring to ‘competent’ authorities is that they are legitimate occupants of positions of authority. Legitimacy, we shall see, is closely related to, but necessarily distinct from, authority.

Similarly, we should distinguish between leadership and authority. A leader functions as such so long as his followers will accede to his requests; but one in authority has a ‘right’ to require obedience. Some positions of authority may be closed to those who lack sufficient capacity for leadership, but leadership and authority are two separate phenomena.

This distinction has sometimes been clouded, as in the very influential work of Max Weber concerning the role of the charismatic leader. Weber regards charisma as one of three types of legitimate authority, the other two being traditional and legal.¹ What stands out in Weber’s analysis is the peculiar way in which the charismatic kind of authority rests not on a nexus of social relationships of shared assumptions, but in the person and even the personality of the agent, so that what Weber describes is less a kind of authority than a kind of person. We shall return to this matter in some detail later, as it is crucial for understanding Paul and some of his opponents.

If we concede that authority is not to be confused with its agents, or with leadership, how may we define and locate it more positively? It is, first of all, the right to power. ‘Power is of itself not authority…Power alone has no legitimacy, no mandate, no office.’² Legitimacy, mandate and office are characteristic of authority and signify its ‘right’ to the power behind it. Second, ‘authority is always a formation of social organisation’.³ Just as it is ‘impossible to conceive of a social aggregate…in which there is no organisation present’,⁴ so it is the case that ‘where there is no organisation there is no authority’.⁵ Thus we have a definition of authority as ‘institutionalized power’⁶ or perhaps better as ‘formal power’,⁷ and a locus for it in the social aggregate. There remains the question of its source.

The question of source is somewhat more complex, and will require modifications in our definition. We must begin by distinguishing between an implicit source on the one hand and proximate and ultimate causes on the other. It is characteristic of much of contemporary writing in the social sciences that it is content to discuss the matter of authority in terms of an implicit source alone. This is the case where authority is thought to be basic to the fact of social organization itself. ‘The reasons people submit to authority, in the larger focus, are the reasons which encourage them to obey the law, to practice the customs of their society, and to conform to the norms of the particular associations to which they belong.’¹ These reasons can be described collectively as social or associational preservation. Authority is ‘supported, sanctioned and sustained by the association itself’.² Both the person who exercises authority and the one who subordinates himself by accepting it exemplify as a primary interest an acceptance of the group within which such status distinctions are found. From this Bierstedt draws the conclusion:

If we seek the rationale of authority…we find it in the very factors which induce men to form associations in the first place, to band together in organized groups, and to perpetuate these associations. It is the desire for stability and continuity which guarantees that the exercise of legitimate authority will be maintained in the statutes of the association, not as an underwriting of particular decisions, but as a bulwark behind the organization of the association itself. An individual who rejects this authority is jeopardizing the continued existence of the association. The ultimate answer therefore to the question of what sustains authority exercised in an association of any kind is that this authority is sustained by a majority of the association’s own members.³

This is adequate as a description of the perduring tendency of social organizations and their members’ acceptance of status difference and authority within them. Authority rests within the social organization and is constantly being underwritten by those who command and those who obey, presumably because the goals of the social organization benefit, and are shared by, both. Moreover, those goals transcend personal relationships.

Nevertheless, the location of authority’s source within this description is wanting. Bierstedt describes an implicit source, nothing more. The problem comes in asking how, in fact, social organizations come about which have this tendency toward endurance, this capacity to persuade toward obedience, this ability to provide within the organization the source of authority. It may be that ‘the rationale of authority’ is to be found in those ‘very factors which induce men to form associations in the first place, to band together in organized groups, and to perpetuate these associations’. But if so, then the ‘rationale’ must somehow be available outside the group itself, i.e., before the group comes into existence. The source of authority, in other words, must be more than merely implicit.

What happens to call into existence those associations of the sort we are discussing? By definition the ‘call’ comes before there is a community which can respond, and its agency is the auctor:

The auctor is, in ordinary speech, creator of a work, father or ancestor, founder of a family or a city, the Creator of the universe. This is the crudest meaning; more subtle meanings have become incorporated in it. The auctor is the man whose advice is followed, to whom the actions of others must in reality be traced back; he instigates, he promotes. He inspires others with…his own purpose, which now becomes that of those others as well – the very principle of the actions which they freely do. In this way the notion of father and creator is illumined and amplified: he is the father of actions freely undertaken whose source is in him though their seat is in others.

But how can a man be the source of actions freely undertaken by others? By, in the first place, giving them the example – this is another meaning of the word auctor – but also by answering for the rightness of the action, for the certainty that it will yield good fruits to the man who undertakes it. The auctor is the guarantor, the man who vouches for the success of the enterprise…The root of the word denotes the idea of augmentation.¹

The ‘augmentation’ supplied by the auctor¹ is the means by which power is directed toward specific goals and transformed from a natural to a social concept. Authority, in other words, is literally an interpretation of power or what we may call the hermeneutic of power. The auctor does not merely lay down his will, but augments it or elaborates it in such a way that the will seems appropriate and beneficial, perhaps even dangerous if disregarded.

There are at least two ways in which this can be done. The first is rational, and in fact turns on the notion of rationality itself as the source of authority. When an ‘author’, one who creates, seeks to gain obedience he is an authority to the extent that he can elaborate the reasons for his will, though he need not always do so. As Friedrich says, ‘human reason can elaborate any utterance made, and it is the potentiality for such reasoned elaboration that lends authority to the utterance’.² For this to be a true description of authority requires that those who receive the communication recognize in it a relationship to knowledge they possess and values or beliefs they share. Thus as a ‘quality of communication’,³ authority can exist prior to and apart from the community which may eventually be called into existence to recognize it, further its domain and help guarantee its perpetuation. Such a ‘source’ of authority is proximate rather than implicit in the social organization.

There is yet another way in which the will of authority may be elaborated, a way which is ‘irrational’ and more properly called ultimate. Antecedent to authority is power, and in this case authority itself interprets the power behind it so as to make that power available and effective for the purposes the authority has in mind. Here too it is a matter of communication, but it is a communication of power rather than reason which marks this view of authority. Authority not only has power behind it but can distribute and arrange the locus of power and, more importantly, access to power.¹ That is to say, it can interpret power so as to gain acceptance.

Force is not authority and not the use of power seen in this way. It is an alternative to authority.² What distinguishes force and authority is that force applies power to motivate those who are less powerful and trades on a disequilibrium of power, while authority distributes power or opens up access to it in order to achieve the shared goals of those whose acceptance of authority is crucial. If reason can augment will and create community on the ‘proximate’ model, power can augment will and create the community in which it continues to be accessible in this ‘ultimate’ model.

Leaving aside the implicit concept of authority with which we began, we can describe two ways in which authority plays a role in creating communities. In the instance of a proximate source for authority, ‘reason’ augments will and creates community. As the ultimate source of authority, power itself augments will and creates the community in which power continues to be accessible as authority. Both models indicate that authority need not be thought of wholly as implicit with existing social organizations, and the second model shows power to be reciprocally related to the concept of authority. We may thus regard authority as the interpretation of power.

The relationship between power and authority can be both confusing and illusive. Since they are so often found together, they can appear to be equivalents, although they are not. Power is always the ultimate source of authority, though there may be more proximate sources and implicit causes. For that reason it can be said that authority is, ultimately, the interpretation of power. This is not gainsaid by the very common occurrence, especially in liberal democratic political societies, of an imbalance between power and authority. For example, a national president may have considerably more authority accorded him by the social aggregate than he has actual power, should he need to display power to those who will not acquiesce, i.e., yield deference and hence grant authority. Or quite the opposite case may obtain. For example, many observers would say that in contemporary American politics presidential power exceeds executive authority while the legislative branch of government has authority it cannot use because it has suffered a diminution in power. This latter phenomenon, if true, does not precisely accord with our definition of authority because it interjects a new element, that of positive law, in this case a national constitution. Nevertheless, it is true that even in contemporary political analysis we must distinguish between the concepts of power and authority. For our purposes we do that by defining authority as the interpretation of power, i.e., the focus of power, its disposition and allocation, the opening of accessibility to power for members of social groups.

AUTHORITY AND LEGITIMACY

If authority should not be confused with power, neither can it be simply equated with legitimacy. The relationship between legitimacy and authority is rather like that between authority and power: close, complex and on occasion so reciprocal that in certain extensions of one or the other they may appear to be equivalents. But they are not.

We may illustrate the actual relationship by first distinguishing between ‘legitimacy’ and ‘legality’. In our earlier analysis we spoke of authority when it is characteristic of and implicit in a social organization. Such organizations may develop positive law for their ordered life. What follows the mandates of that law is legal, but it is not thereby necessarily legitimate. Legitimacy belongs to the sense of rightness, justification and fitness which pervades the community and acts as part of its social cement. While we would normally expect a code of positive law to embody this sense of rightness, we can imagine cases to the contrary. Hitler’s regime established positive law and then proceeded administratively in accord with that law. It was doubtless legal. Whether or not it was legitimate depends on whether or not the body of law accurately reflected the society’s sense of fitness and rightness. To take another example, one can imagine specific laws which prove unenforceable even though the social unit is on the whole quite obedient to its laws in other instances. The Volstead Act, prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States, belongs in this class. The act was legal but not legitimate because it did not adequately express community norms.

Such a distinction between legitimacy and legality can be pressed too far, leaving the mistaken impression that legitimacy and authority are virtually indistinguishable, which is quite the opposite of our thesis. Legality is not other than legitimacy, but a particular mode of formalization, while formalization itself is a generic feature of legitimacy. Formalization is the development, in social aggregates, of status, role and deference.¹ One way to articulate the sense of authority implicit in social organization is to develop roles to be filled within the aggregate. These roles carry status of varying degrees, and the seriousness of the whole enterprise is underscored by the way differences of role and status are acknowledged through the use of deference. Legitimacy emerges where a pattern of roles, status and deference has developed. This development, or formalization, is itself an attempt to express the authority behind it, an authority implicitly lodged in the social aggregate, even if there be a more ultimate source. Thus legitimacy is an interpretation of authority, i.e., an attempt to communicate authority and make it accessible – just as authority is an interpretation of power.

Because of the close association between legitimacy and authority, the former is sometimes taken to be the latter, and phrases such as ‘legitimate authority’ make the matter only more confusing. The problem is particularly evident in the work of Max Weber. Since his terminology is somewhat different from ours it will help to clarify our analysis by paying some initial attention to both his vocabulary and the rudiments of his conceptual scheme.

SANCTITY, CHANGE AND SOCIAL ORDER

Of the three terms we have sought to distinguish, the most fundamental for Weber is ‘legitimacy’, or better, ‘legitimate order.’ Belief in this order guides action, ‘especially social action which involves a social relationship’.¹ Power (Macht), within a social relationship, ‘is the probability that one actor…will be in a position to carry out his will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which the probability rests’.² By contrast, domination (Herrschaft) ‘is the probability that a command with a given specific content will be obeyed by a given group of persons.’³ Hence for Weber domination is set within a context of legitimate order in such a way that some sense of that order is presupposed in the understanding of domination itself. The relationship between legitimate order and power is less clear, but power is defined wholly within the framework of social relationships, not as something external to those relationships. This makes it appear that legitimacy is the most primary term, something which can be confirmed elsewhere in Weber’s analysis.

The term ‘authority’ corresponds to what Weber calls ‘legitimate domination’.⁴ By this he means those modes of domination which incorporate a sense of legitimate order rather than relying on mere force or power disequilibrium. Properly speaking there is no concept of authority except as it presupposes the ideas of both legitimacy and domination. Since legitimacy is, however, antecedent to domination, it is also logically prior to the idea of authority. Thus the three types of authority which Weber educes – rational (legal), traditional, and charismatic – presuppose the idea of legitimacy. This is underscored by the fashion in which Weber introduces the category of legitimacy as a fundamental sociological construct alongside those of social action and social relationship.

On what basis do persons ascribe legitimacy to a social order? ‘The actors may ascribe legitimacy to a social order by virtue of: (a) tradition: valid is that which has always been; (b) affectual, especially emotional, faith: valid is that which is newly revealed or exemplary; (c) value-rational faith: valid is that which has been deduced as an absolute; (d) positive enactment which is believed to be legal.’¹ Weber goes on to explain that ‘the validity of a social order by virtue of the sacredness of tradition is the…most universal type of legitimacy’.² This makes it clear that legitimate order is inherently contrary to change and may envelop itself in an aura which sanctifies the traditional. It also makes it clear that this ‘sanctity’ must be accounted for, that behind the diverse motives for ascribing legitimacy must be the source of legitimacy.

History is a process of change and we must be able to account for change in legitimate orders. Since there is more than one basis for ascribing legitimacy, we must ask if there is a single unifying concept behind the various motives, a source from which legitimacy itself comes. What is needed is not supplied by Weber’s understanding of power, since that is defined only within social relationships while what we seek must lie outside any specific set of relationships and have the potential for creating them. Is there in Weber’s scheme anything which constitutes an ultimate source beyond the social order and accounts for changes in it, something which corresponds to the idea of power developed above? Parsons has suggested that in fact the category ‘charisma’ plays just such a role and is ‘the name in Weber’s system for the source of legitimacy in general’.³

In isolating the charismatic phenomenon Weber is reaching back to early Christian vocabulary through R. Sohm’s Kirchenrecht and K. Holl’s Enthusiasmus und Bußgewalt. Charisma occupies a central role in Weber’s sociology of religion, as we might expect. But it is also a basic category in the wider elaboration of the idea of legitimate order, without reference to specifically religious connotations. It is a category explaining social change. What then is the relationship of the phenomenon charisma to the category?

The main context is that of a break in a traditional order. Hence two of the most prominent aspects of the concept charisma – its association with antitraditionalism as its revolutionary character and its particularly close association with a specific person, a leader. The prophet is thus the leader who sets himself explicitly and consciously against the traditional order – or aspects of it – and who claims moral authority for his position, whatever the terms in which he expresses it, such as divine will. It is men’s duty to listen to him and follow his commands or his example. In this connection it is also important to note that the prophet is one who feels himself to be reborn. He is qualitatively different from other men in that he is in touch with or the instrument of a source of authority higher than any which is established or any to which obedience can be motivated by calculation of advantage.¹

Here we have the two key elements: the source of authority which validates the break in the routine. Because charisma constitutes such a break, a change in the ordinary, Weber saw it primarily as a temporary phenomenon which had to be subsequently subsumed and embodied in the social structure. This question of the routinization of charisma is complex, but at heart it is the question of how sanctity is assigned to any social structure, i.e., legitimate order. For charisma is finally in touch with the sacred, ‘a quality of things and persons by virtue of which they are specifically set apart from the ordinary, the every-day, the routine’, where ‘routine’ means not that which is habitually performed, but that which is profane. In short, ‘charismatic authority is a phase of moral authority’.² It now becomes clear that charisma is not merely one of three types of legitimate authority, but a constituent element in all legitimate order. If legitimacy is prior to authority in Weber’s analysis, charisma is prior to legitimacy. ‘There is no legitimate order without a charismatic element.’³

It is interesting to note that this fundamental and extensive concept has its genesis in the role of the prophet and is originally at home in a religious context. The sense of apartness which characterizes charisma belongs to man’s propensity to recognize a world