ABSTRACT
Marx and Engels, and particularly Engels, applied their ideas to many aspects of religion and especially to the analysis of religious movements such as early Christianity and millennial movements. They were attracted, it would seem, by the revolutionary, world-changing potential of such movements and their frequent association with rebellion and revolution on the part of the oppressed and downtrodden sections of society. In this chapter their treatment of millennial movements of the Middle Ages and the way their ideas concerning such movements have been developed by more recent writers will be discussed and applied to a variety of such phenomena, both historical and contemporary.1
