The New International Encyclopædia/Hatch, Edwin

HATCH, Edwin (1835-89). An English theologian, born at Derby. He was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford; was ordained deacon in 1858, and priest in 1859; from 1859 to 1862 was professor of classics in Trinity College, Toronto, Can., from 1862 to 1867 rector of the Quebec High School; and from 1867 to 1885 was vice-principal of Saint Mary Hall, Oxford. In 1883 he became rector of Purleigh, Essex, in 1884 university reader in ecclesiastical history and secretary to the boards of faculties. He was Bampton lecturer in 1880, Grinfield lecturer on the Septuagint from 1882 to 1884, and Hibbert lecturer in 1888. The degree of D.D. was conferred upon him by the University of Edinburgh in 1883. He was a founder (1870) and the first editor of the Official Gazette. In theology he was an independent thinker, who sought to effect at Oxford a scientific basis for that study. He published The Student's Handbook to the University and Colleges of Oxford in 1873 {7th ed. 1883), but The Organization of the Early Christian Churches (Bampton Lectures, 1881) was his first important volume. This was rendered into German, by the eminent Dr. Harnack, as Die Gesellschaftsverfassung der christlichen Kirchen in Alterthum (Giessen, 1883). Other works by him were: The Growth of Church Institutions (1887), and Greek Influence on Christianity (the “Hibbert Lectures,” edited by Dr. Fairbairn, 1890). His writings were read and discussed with interest in Scotland, Germany, and the United States, as well as in England. Consult an article by Harnack in the Theologische Litteratur Zeitung (1890).