Two Men From Trier: Karl Marx (and Communism) and Caspar Olevianus (and the Heidelberg Catechism)
This comparative biographical article examines two notable figures from Trier, Germany—Caspar Olevianus (author of the Heidelberg Catechism) and Karl Marx (author of The Communist Manifesto)—highlighting their contrasting life trajectories, educations, and ultimate legacies. Stewart uses the parallel lives of these two men to implicitly defend Reformed Christian doctrine and catechetical instruction against atheistic communism, demonstrating how Christian commitment produces vastly different fruit than revolutionary ideology.
Rev. Angus Stewart Two Men Our story starts in Trier (or Trèves), a city in western Germany, close to Luxembourg. On the banks of the River Moselle and in an important wine producing region, Trier is the oldest seat of a bishop north of the Alps and may be the oldest city in Germany. It was in Trier that both Caspar Olevianus (1536-1587) and Karl Marx (1818-1883) were born and brought up, with Marx living about 300 years after Olevianus.1 Although Olevianus and Marx wrote a number of books,...