Etymological wordplay let medieval polemicists fuse unrelated groups into one genus

Evidence

Playing around with etymology enabled Jacques to construct a specific category in which could be grouped a series of assertions, both ethnographic and theological, that applied to no such actual group of people. For good measure, he includes Sadducees—a biblical category determined by a set of distinctive beliefs—and Samaritans, a few communities of which were probably still in existence in the early thirteenth century, under the same general heading. Having done so, he takes the opportunity to embark on a critique of contemporary Judaism, with the implication that, although they may differ in specific theological beliefs, Essenes, Nizari Ismailites, Sadducees and Samaritans are all subgroups of the genus Jews. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 212

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Judgment etymologically means original division within unity — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1318; The category of the grotesque originally named human-animal-plant hybrids defying classical logic