Edwin Hatch

1835-1889. Anglican divine. Born at Derby, he graduated from Oxford and in 1859 was appointed professor of classics at Trinity College, Toronto. He became rector of Quebec High School (1862), vice-principal of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford (1867-85), rector of Purleigh, Essex (1883), and reader in ecclesiastical history at Oxford (1884). His most important work was his Bampton Lectures on The Organization of the Early Christian Churches (1880), which aroused considerable controversy, especially in High Church circles. They argued that the Christian episcopate derived from the financial administrators (episkopoi) of Greek religious associations. Hatch continued the subject with The Growth of Church Institutions (1887). He produced also Essays in Biblical Greek (1889) and Concordance to the Septuagint (with H.A. Redpath, published posthumously in 1897). His Hibbert Lectures, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages on the Christian Church (1888), reflect his philosophical interests.