Keywords

• The new concept of â€
• œ
• vocationâ€
• 
• proposed by the reformers highly enhanced the tasks and performances of the worldly activity and â€
• œ
• labourâ€
• 
• of the faithful. The diffusion of this doctrine throughout Europe is summarized in the sections of the report that concern
• first
• some of the writings of Calvin
• secondly the Treatise of the Vocations (1603) by William Perkins
• and thirdly the Politica of the German calvinist Johannes Althusius (ed. 1614
• where Perkins is mentioned). The views of the authors were however still distant from the patterns of the â€
• œ
• professional ethicsâ€
• 
• which were shaped by the later puritan literature in the last decades of the seventeenth century. In its earlier stages the doctrine of â€
• œ
• the vocationâ€
• 
• was grounded in the ideas of mutuality and common interaction
• and therefore priority was given to public life
• in a strong institutional context: that is the Compagnie des fidèles (Calvin)
• the Church and Commonwealth (Perkins) and the political consociatio (Althusius)