Inspired by the advice of his former teacher and mentor, Adolf von Harnack, William Wrede committed himself to the task of writing a dissertation on 1 Clement, which was originally published under the title Untersuchungen zum 1. Clemensbrief and has now been published here in English translation for the first time under the title Studies on 1 Clement. In this volume, Wrede investigates the ecclesiastical structure of the early church as well as the significance and function of the Old Testament in 1 Clement. Though overshadowed by his later work, The Messianic Secret, Wrede's work on 1 Clement served as a tempered and solid basis for later investigations of the letter, even when those investigations part ways with Wrede's conclusions.

William Wrede (1859-1906) was a leading proponent of radical literary criticism, whose masterful Messianic Secret in the Gospels revolutionized NT studies. A late bloomer, Wrede became Professor of New Testament at Breslau, Germany in 1895 at age 36 and died just eleven years later. He produced only two major books---one on the gospels (1901) and this volume on Paul (1904) - both of which became classics, whose theses are referred to in all later texts on these topics.