Abstract
The author passes in review the various manners in which Marx situates himself concerning religion over the course of his writings. From the prespective of a believing Lutheran (of Jewish origin) at the outset, Marx develops, first of all, a critique of Christianity and its legitimizing of economic and social practices. Rapidly abandoning the Bauerian "theological critique", there soon emerges that of money, as the idol to which men are sacrifi ced. He then adds a materialist critique of religious idealism and more particularly, of "Christian socialism", because of its uto pian character. The symbolic character of class domination beco mes central. He utilizes the idea of fetishism in order to denounce the false representation of capital and labour. Finally, he stands opposed to the utilization of atheism as dogma, as done by Baku nin. The author concludes that, faced with three levels of analysis of religion (abstract essence, concrete essences and concrete mani festations), Marx can only be explicitly identified with the second and then uniquely in labelling religion as domination. Nonethe less, the logic of his writings and certain of his intuitions does not at all warrent excluding other levels.