In this blog post, I would like to show how my recent AGNTS 2026 translation of Hans Rollmann and Werner Zager’s wonderful edition of the “Unpublished Letters of William Wrede on the Problematization of the Messianic Self-Understanding of Jesus” can contribute to our understanding and transmission of the personal and scholarly legacy of William Wrede, in a way that also has the potential to enrich our own scholarship and personal lives. I will do so in three points: 1) Teaching students about the Messianic Secret, 2) Adding Wrede’s “messianic reconsideration” to the general knowledge of what is known about Wrede, 3) Gaining a deeper understanding of Wrede as a person and scholar.

1) Teaching Students about the Messianic Secret

Many undergraduate and graduate students will be introduced to Wrede’s classic work The Messianic Secret (Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien). While there are many excellent summaries and analyses of this work, I think that there is much to be said for having students begin with Wrede’s own attempt to present what he has attempted to do in his most famous book, namely by reading his “Self-Review of the Messianic Secret.” This can be found in Document 10 of his “Unpublished Letters” (AGNTS 2 [2026], pp. 32-33; ZNThG/JHMTh 8 [2001], 303-305) or as an separate article (AGNTS 1 [2025], pp. 1-2). For graduate students, it might also prove be attractive to assign some of Wrede’s other letters that discuss his book, such as Document 6, where Wrede works very hard to convince his publisher that his new book will be a hit (AGNTS 2 [2026], 20-24)!

2) Adding Wrede’s “Messianic Reconsideration” to the General Knowledge of What is Known about Wrede

While many students and scholars are aware that Wrede raised serious questions about whether Jesus regarded himself as the Messiah in his landmark work The Messianic Secret (GV 1901, 4th 1969; ET 1971), it is less widely known that Wrede subsequently reconsidered the viewpoint that he had expressed there in a letter to Adolf von Harnack (1905), where he wrote: “I am more inclined than earlier to believe that Jesus regarded himself as designated to be the Messiah.” / “Ich bin geneigter als früher zu glauben, daß Jesus selbst sich als zum Messias ausersehen betrachtet hat.” (AGNTS 1 [2025], 3-6, here 4; AGNTS 2 [2026], 46-47, here 47; ZNThG/JHMTh 8 [2001], 315-317, here 317). Against this background, I hope that my translation of Wrede’s letter to Harnack will help to make Wrede’s “messianic reconsideration” (my preferred designation) part of the general information that students and scholars learn and know about Wrede. At the same time, reaching beyond this general goal, I am also hopeful that many students and scholars will also be motivated to examine this striking statement of Wrede within the rhetorical context of his full letter to Harnack. Moreover, I hope that readers will also take note of Rollmann and Zager’s perceptive discussion of this statement, which includes the important observation that the viewpoint Wrede expresses in this letter does not represent something entirely new but rather a return to a position that he had advocated at an earlier point in time (see AGNTS 2 [2026], 7; ZNThG/JHMTh 8 [2001], 279-280).

3) Gaining a Deeper Understanding of Wrede as a Person and Scholar

For me personally, the process of reading and translating Rollmann and Zager’s excellent edition of Wrede’s unpublished letters gave me a much greater appreciation for William Wrede as a person and scholar.

For example, his correspondence with Martin Rade (See AGNTS 2 [2026], 10-24) showed how two old friends could continue to relate to each other with integrity and sensitivity, even after their thinking had moved in different directions in important respects.

One of his letters to Harnack, in turn, revealed that Wrede sometimes experienced periods of great depression followed by periods of heighted productivity (AGNTS 2, 27):

“Long explanations of why letters have not been written are usually just as little edifying for the recipient as for the writer. In this case, however, I must at least say a word. Your mailings encountered me in a time of great depression. When it then departed in the previous autumn, there came a time of restless work in which I pushed aside everything that did not imperiously demand to be completed, and this time is actually only just now coming to an end. This is no excuse. And the fact that I am a rather sluggish fellow is certainly not either. But I ask you to at least believe me that I wanted to thank you time and again and to grant me mitigating circumstances because of this.”

Finally, a heartfelt card from his wife Elisabeth to Albert Schweitzer suggested that Wrede’s fame and recognition had largely come too late for him to enjoy it, which is why it was all the more important to her that Schweitzer had honored him during his lifetime (AGNTS 2, 52):

“I am sending you the words that our friend K[arl] Müller spoke at the coffin of my husband. From this you will get to know him as a person as he really was. I very much wish that you would then appreciate my husband not only as a scholar but also come to hold him dear as a human being. For while with him both were one, the human being was nevertheless still infinitely more. – Your book and your letters brought my husband very much joy in this last year. He was truly not spoiled with recognition, and it is often now very bitter for me to see that it is now given to him in such full measure where he can no longer enjoy it. He has courageously gone his own straight way, but he felt the loneliness that was always connected with it. Thus, I am thankful with all my heart for the few who showed him what they thought of him during his lifetime.”

In addition to strengthening and deepening the very positive impression that I had gained of Wrede from reading his unpublished letters, this card reminded me of the importance of encouraging and appreciating one another in our work. Even if the vast majority of us are neither as gifted nor as accomplished as Wrede or Schweitzer, it is good that we pursue our work in the ways and forms that we are able, and it is also good that we have friends and colleagues who accompany us in the work and encourage us along the way.

For my other blog posts on William Wrede, see here.

For a complete list of my blog posts, please see here.

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