CLEMEN, CARL (1865–1940), Protestant theologian and historian of religions. Carl Christian Clemen was one of the founders of research in the science of religion and of its institutionalization in Germany. After qualifying for a lectureship in New Testament studies in Halle, he taught there from 1892 to 1903 and in Bonn from 1903 to 1908. After visiting the United States as a guest lecturer in 1908 and 1909, he became in 1910 associate professor and in 1920 professor of the history of religions in the philosophy department of the University of Bonn. The breadth of his scholarship is indicated by the fact that his publications number approximately six hundred titles, that he lectured on the Old Testament and on systematic and practical theology, and that he taught Avestan.

His publications first concerned the New Testament and its background in the history of religions. His inaugural lecture at Bonn, published as Die religionsgeschichtliche Methode in der...