Edwin Hatch argued for the comparability of early Christian and Greco-Roman institutional forms. But his critics dismissed Hatch’s comparanda for being insufficiently precise, and thus no threat to the uniqueness of Christian forms. This paper explores comparison, the complexities of claiming comparability in specific cases, arguing that the process of identifying comparanda is political and strategic, used both as a tool and a weapon, and too often in the study of religion – as in the case of Hatch’s critics – comparison is wielded in the service of incomparability, a strategic move that can be called comparatio iniquitatis causa (comparison for the sake of difference).
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Ascough Richard S. Paul’s Macedonian Associations: The Social Context of Philippians and 1 Thessalonians 2003 WUNT 2 161 Tübingen J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck]
Ascough Richard S. “Translocal Relationships among Voluntary Associations and Early Christianity.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 1997 5 1 223 241
Burtchaell James T. From Synagogue to Church: Public Services and Offices in the Earliest Christian Communities 1992 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
Casagrande Joseph & Hale Kenneth Hymes Dell & Bittle W. “Semantic Relations in Papago Folk-Definitions.” Studies in Southwestern Linguistics 1967 The Hague Mouton 165 193
Chrysostom John Harkins Paul W. Discourses against Judaizing Christians 1979 68 Washington Catholic University of America Press The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation
Dougherty Carol The Poetics of Colonization: From City to Text in Archaic Greece 1993 Oxford Oxford University Press
Gore Charles The Church and the Ministry: A Review of the Rev. E. Hatch’s Bampton Lectures 1882 2nd ed. London Rivingtons
Hamill James F. Ethno-Logic: The Anthropology of Human Reasoning 1990 Urbana and Chicago University of Illinois Press
Hanges James Constantine Idinopulos Thomas Athanasius , Wilson Brian C. & Hanges James Constantine “Interpreting Glossolalia and the Comparison of Comparisons.” Comparing Religions: Possibilities and Perils? 2006 Leiden Brill 181 218 Numen Book Series: Studies in the History of Religions 113
Hanges James Constantine Paul, Founder of Churches: A Study in Light of the Evidence for the Role of “Founder-Figures” in the Hellenistic–Roman Period 2012 WUNT 292 Tübingen Mohr Siebeck
Hardy Ernest George Christianity and the Roman Government: A Study in Imperial Administration 1925 London and New York G. Allen & Unwin and Macmillan Studies in Roman History. Repr.
Harland Philip A. Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations : Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society 2003 Minneapolis Fortress Press
Haskell Robert E. “The Access Paradox in Analogical Reasoning and Transfer: Whither Invariance?” The Journal of Mind and Behavior 2009 30 1–2 33 65
Hatch Edwin The Organization of the Early Christian Churches: Eight Lectures Delivered before the University of Oxford in 1880 1901 London and New York and Bombay Longmans, Green and Co.
Josaitis Norman F. Edwin Hatch and Early Church Order 1971 Gembloux Éditions J. Duculot Recherches et syntheses, Section d/Histoire 3
Kloppenborg John S. McLean Bradley H. “Edwin Hatch, Churches and Collegia.” Origins and Method: Toward a New Understanding of Judaism and Christianity: Essays in Honour of John C. Hurd 1993 JSOTSup 86 Sheffield, England JSOT Press 212 238
Kloppenborg John S. Kloppenborg John S. & Wilson Stephen G. “Collegia and Thiasoi: Issues in Function, Taxonomy and Membership.” Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World 1996 London and New York Routledge 16 30
Meeks Wayne A. The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul 1983 New Haven Yale University Press
Sharp Lauriston “Steel Axes for Stone-Age Australians.” Human Organization 1952 11 2 17 22
Smith Jonathan Z. “In Comparison a Magic Dwells.” Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown 1982 Chicago and London University of Chicago Press Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism
Smith Jonathan Z. “A Pearl of Great Price and a Cargo of Yams: A Study in Situational Incongruity.” Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown 1982 Chicago and London University of Chicago Press Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism
Smith Jonathan Z. Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity 1990 Chicago University of Chicago Press
Wilken Robert L. John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late Fourth Century 1983 Berkeley, CA University of California Press
Wilken Robert L. The Christians as the Romans Saw Them 1984 New Haven and London Yale University Press
Wilson Brian C. Idinopulos Thomas A. & Wilson Brian C. “From Lexical to Polythetic: A Brief History of the Definition of Religion.” What is Religion?: Origins, Definitions, and Explanations 1998 Leiden Brill 141 162 Numen Book Series Studies in the History of Religions 81
See Jonathan Z. Smith, “In Comparison a Magic Dwells,” in Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown, Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 21. While Smith cannot find “rules” for the carrying out of a comparison, comparison like metaphor, analogy, similarity, and taxonomy are what Robert E. Haskell would call “surface manifestations” of analogical reasoning, “a neurological and evolutionary-based invariance function,” see: “The Access Paradox in Analogical Reasoning and Transfer: Whither Invariance?,” The Journal of Mind and Behavior 30.1–2 (2009), 35–36.
Edwin Hatch, The Organization of the Early Christian Churches: Eight Lectures Delivered before the University of Oxford in 1880 (London and New York and Bombay: Longmans, Green and Co., 1901), 17–19, 29–30, 86–87, 114.
See James T. Burtchaell, From Synagogue to Church: Public Services and Offices in the Earliest Christian Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 76–94.
On the debate, see: Charles Gore, The Church and the Ministry: A Review of the Rev. E. Hatch’s Bampton Lectures (2nd ed.; London: Rivingtons, 1882); Ernest George Hardy, Christianity and the Roman Government: A Study in Imperial Administration, Studies in Roman History (repr. of the 1st ed; London and New York: G. Allen & Unwin and Macmillan, 1925); Norman F. Josaitis, Edwin Hatch and Early Church Order, Recherches et syntheses, Section d’Histoire 3 (Gembloux: Éditions J. Duculot, 1971); Burtchaell, Synagogue to Church, 76–81; John S. Kloppenborg, “Edwin Hatch, Churches and Collegia,” in Bradley H. McLean, ed., Origins and Method: Toward a New Understanding of Judaism and Christianity: Essays in Honour of John C. Hurd, JSOTSup 86 (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1993): 212–238.
See especially: Richard S. Ascough, “Translocal Relationships among Voluntary Associations and Early Christianity,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 5.2 (1997): 223–241; as background, also see: Idem, Paul’s Macedonian Associations: The Social Context of Phillipians and 1 Thessalonians, WUNT 2.161 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 2003).
Jonathan Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).
Jonathan Z. Smith, “A Pearl of Great Price and a Cargo of Yams: A Study in Situational Incongruity,” in Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown, Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1982): 90–101. Also note the similar conclusion based on an analysis (though not so explicitly comparative) of Siberian hunters in the same volume, pp. 53–65.
James Constantine Hanges, “Interpreting Glossolalia and the Comparison of Comparisons,” in Comparing Religions: Possibilities and Perils?, Numen Book Series: Studies in the History of Religions 113, Thomas Athanasius Idinopulos, Brian C. Wilson, and James Constantine Hanges, eds. (Leiden: Brill, 2006): 181–218.
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Edwin Hatch argued for the comparability of early Christian and Greco-Roman institutional forms. But his critics dismissed Hatch’s comparanda for being insufficiently precise, and thus no threat to the uniqueness of Christian forms. This paper explores comparison, the complexities of claiming comparability in specific cases, arguing that the process of identifying comparanda is political and strategic, used both as a tool and a weapon, and too often in the study of religion – as in the case of Hatch’s critics – comparison is wielded in the service of incomparability, a strategic move that can be called comparatio iniquitatis causa (comparison for the sake of difference).
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 254 | 63 | 3 |
Full Text Views | 177 | 0 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 18 | 2 | 0 |