πατριάρχης

Forms

πᾰτρῐᾰ́ρχης (patriárkhēs) m (genitive πᾰτρῐᾰ́ρχου); first declension^[1]

Etymology

A compound, from Ancient Greek πατριά (patriā́) + -άρχης (-árkhēs): the head (from ἄρχω (árkhō), “to lead, rule”) of a πατριά (patriā́), a clan or line of descent.^[1][2][3] That noun itself goes back to πατήρ (patḗr), “father”.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in the Septuagint, in the books of Chronicles, where it renders Hebrew expressions for the heads of the clans and the chiefs of the tribes of Israel.^[4][5][6]

Semantic evolution

In Jewish Greek the word came to mean the founding ancestors of the nation: 4 Maccabees speaks of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as “our patriarchs”.^[7][3] The New Testament uses it in the same way, of Abraham, of the twelve sons of Jacob, the founders of the tribes, and of David as an ancestor of note.^[8][9][7]

In the Church it became first an honorific and then an official title of the bishops of the great sees.^[10] The New Pauly finds it first as a title in the acts of the Council of Constantinople of 381,^[10] and in Justinian's legislation it is the title of the bishops of Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria.^[2][3] Coptic borrowed the word, with records from about AD 500,^[11] and it passed into Latin (patriarcha), Old Church Slavonic, Armenian and Arabic.^[1]

Medieval Greek kept it,^[12] and Modern Greek πατριάρχης (patriárchis) is the title of the heads of autocephalous Orthodox churches; its figurative sense, the founder or doyen of a movement, follows French patriarche.^[13] English patriarch, from Old French and Late Latin, is recorded from the late 12th century for the Old Testament fathers.^[14]

Timeline

• 2nd century BC – The Septuagint's books of Chronicles use it for the heads of clans and tribes of Israel.^[4][6]
• 1st century AD – 4 Maccabees calls Abraham, Isaac and Jacob patriarchs.^[7][6]
• 1st century AD – Acts uses it of David and of the sons of Jacob, and Hebrews of Abraham.^[8][6]
• 4th century AD – It is first recorded as an official church title, at the Council of Constantinople in 381.^[10]
• 6th century AD – Justinian's laws give it as the title of the bishops of the five chief sees.^[2][15]
• About AD 500 – Coptic texts first show the borrowed word.^[11]
• 12th century – English takes the word as patriarke, of the Old Testament fathers.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. The chief of a clan or tribe.^[2][4]
2. A patriarch, a founding ancestor of a people: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the sons of Jacob, David.^[8][9][7]
3. (Christianity) Patriarch, the title of the bishops of Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria.^[2][1]

Word family

• πατριαρχικός (patriarkhikós)

Related words

• πατήρ (patḗr)
• ἄρχω (árkhō)
• Latin patriarcha
• English patriarch

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
4. ^ a b c Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
5. ^ Abbott-Smith, G. (1922), A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark
6. ^ a b c d Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
7. ^ a b c d Thayer, Joseph Henry (1889), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, New York: American Book Company
8. ^ a b c Bauer, Walter; Danker, Frederick W., et al. (2000), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press
9. ^ a b United Bible Societies (2023), UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (revised Louw–Nida semantic domains), open-licence ed.
10. ^ a b c Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth, eds. (2002–2010), Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Leiden: Brill
11. ^ a b Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC), Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Leipzig
12. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
13. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
14. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
15. ^ Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge