Comparative Method in Religion

The tertium comparationis is the 'third term' - the explicit respect in which two or more things are being compared. Jonathan Z. Smith argued that comparison is never simply perceiving that X resembles Y, because any two things are alike and unlike in countless ways; the scholar must specify the dimension along which the comparison runs (function, structure, concept, history). Naming this respect matters because it makes the comparison accountable: it reveals the scholar's theoretical choice, allows others to evaluate or contest it, and prevents the vague, all-purpose parallels that gave older comparative religion a bad name.

Earlier comparativists, from Müller onward, often treated similarities across religions as objective facts to be collected and arranged into universal or evolutionary schemes. Smith argued instead that comparison is an act of scholarly imagination: similarities are constructed by the comparativist's purpose and chosen criteria, not found ready-made in the world. He therefore demanded explicit justification of why particular cases are compared and in what respect, and he insisted that differences be analyzed as carefully as similarities. This shifts the method from accumulating parallels toward disciplined, self-aware, theory-driven comparison.

Because a comparison that only notes resemblances tends to flatten traditions and exaggerate unity. Smith stressed that the places where an otherwise close parallel breaks down are often the most illuminating: they show the limits of a category, the specificity of each tradition, and the work that context does. Taking difference seriously also guards against the temptation to assemble look-alike traits as proof of a timeless essence. In practice, the analyst measures both convergence and divergence and treats non-correspondence as informative data rather than as noise to be smoothed away.