Patriarch

(pa'tre-ark.) [From Gr. patriarch es;patria, ar ace, and ar cho, I govern.) It properly signifies the head or chief of a family. The name of patriarchs is generally confined to the progenitors of the Israeli tes who lived before Moses, Abraham,Isaac, Jacob, .; or to the heads of families before the flood, as the antediluvian patriarchs. The appellation has from hence been transferred to the bishops of the first churches of the East; as the patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Constantinople. [s. 689]