But as I checked I found that there is indeed truth in the remark, though it was not made by Karl Marx (1818-1883), but by Friedrich Engels (1820-1895). It can be found in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works: Volume 43: Letters 1868-70 (Lawrence & Wishart, 2010; digital edition), page 541, which contains “Frederick Engels Confession.”

In his disquisition on how to write church history, Philip Schaff rightly emphasized that while the actual task of writing history is an art, the historian’s first duty is to the truth. He or she must be sure of the facts.

Now, a few days ago, I came across what seemed to me to be a remarkable statement:

Once, when Frederick Engels asked Karl Marx, his longtime friend and co-author of The Communist Manifesto, to name “The characters you most dislike,” Marx gave just one name: Spurgeon.

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