Weber's typological and comparative framework

In Weber's classic statement, “virtuoso” or “heroic” religiosity is primarily defined in opposition to mass religiosity. Human beings vary in their religious capacities and in the special personal attributes – the “charisma” – necessary to attain the highest religious ends. As a result, a status stratification emerges in which the most qualified come to constitute a kind of “spiritual aristocracy” devoted to the methodical pursuit of salvation. This methodical pursuit usually entails the subjugation of natural drives (as defined in each cultural setting) to some form of rigid discipline, and implies a criticism of the more complacent lifestyle of the masses. (Incidentally, Weber does not seem to have attached to the term virtuosity any of the negative connotations nowadays possibly associated with it – virtuosity in the sense of “merely” technical brilliance and superficial, “soulless” artistic performance.)

The virtuosi's superior religious status is not, however, without ambiguities. Their single-minded and methodical pursuit of the highest religious ends appears to engender a whole range of tensions in their relation with society at large. A first and major source of tension is what Weber sees as a basic antagonism between virtuosi and the religious establishment. In the case of Christianity, for example, there is an inevitable tension between the characteristic tendency of virtuosi to seek sanctification on their own, and the Church's institutional monopoly on mediating the bestowal of religious grace.