PATRIARCH

(A compound of narnp, father, and ap\oi, I govern.) The title given by the sacred writers to ids of families recorded in Scripture, from Adam to Jacob and his sons. This title was a umed also in the early ages of the church by the bishops of the principal cities of the empire, as Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, . The name was adopted from the practice of the Jews; who, after the dispersion, subjected themselves to the spiritual superintendence of the patriarchs resident at Tiberias and Babylon. The first mention of a Christian patriarch occurs about 440. They were, for the moat part. superior to archbishops or metropolitans, being set over several provinces. This, however, was not always the case. The patriarchs of Ephesus and Caisarea, for instance, were subject to the bishop of Constantinople, and were only on a par with diocesan prelates. (See Hooker, Eccles. Polity, 6, 7; Mosheim, vol. i., pp. 179, 349, trans., 1790.) [s. 921]