The Encyclopedia of World Religions

280 S Marx, Karl

rewards in the next life. The N EW T ESTAMENT book of R EVELATION imagines the martyrs ruling with J ESUS for a thousand years (20.4). Islamic tradition teaches that martyrs stand closest to G OD ’s throne. In I SLAM , martyrdom is closely connected with giv ing one’s life for God or in defense of the FAITH ( see JIHAD ). Martyrs have been especially important in J UDAISM , C HRISTIANITY , and I SLAM . Judaism has a long history of martyrdom. One important ancient example is Rabbi Akiba ben Joseph. Some tradi tions say he was burned to death in a T ORAH scroll, others that he was flayed alive for teaching Judaism in public. The first Christian martyr was Stephen, who was stoned to death for blasphemy (A CTS OF

THE A POSTLES 7). Those who died in ancient per secutions include the apostles P ETER and P AUL . The Martyr’s Mirror, by Thieleman J. van Braght, preserves the memory of Anabaptist martyrs who were killed for their beliefs at the time of the Prot estant R EFORMATION . The most famous Muslim martyr is probably Husayn, the son of Ali, who is especially revered in S HI ’ ITE I SLAM . He was killed in 680 C . E . when he tried to assume the political and religious position that his grandfather, M UHAMMAD , had held. Marx, Karl (1818–1883) German social thinker Marx is important as the founder of a socialist movement, Marxism, that many people in the 20th century saw as a religion in itself. He is also impor tant for his ideas on religion. Marx accepted what earlier critics had written about religion. Therefore, he did not write much about religion himself. What he did write draws attention to the relationship between religion and economics, especially the struggle between the rich and the poor. Marx’s most famous sentence on religion calls it the “opiate of the people.” Just as the wealthy turn to opium to relieve their pain, Marx said, poor working people—the proletariat—turn to religion. But this move only saps the proletariat of strength. Instead, they should eliminate the class structure that keeps them in poverty. Then they will no lon ger need religion. During the 20th and early 21st centuries, many theologians accepted much of Marx’s criticism of religion. They saw it as a call not to reject religion but to reform it. Mary Often called the Blessed Virgin Mary or Our Lady; the mother of J ESUS . In the B IBLE Mary appears especially in the G OSPEL of Luke. There she is prominent in stories about Jesus’ birth and one story about his childhood. Indeed, Luke claims that Mary is his source for these stories (Luke 2.51). In the gospel of Matthew, Mary appears in stories about Jesus’ birth and early years that are not found

An engraving of Karl Marx (Image Select/Art Resource, N.Y.)