The father as head of the family is the basis of the idea of "father-king." This is seen among the Matchlapis, a Kaffir tribe, where "those who own a sufficient number of cattle to maintain a family have the right to the title of chief"; this resembles the institution of the pater familias in ancient Latium (100. 459,533).
Dr. von Held thus expresses himself upon this point: "The first, and one may say also the last, naturally necessary society of man is the family in the manifold forms out of which it has been historically developed. Its beginning and its apex are, under given culture-conditions, the man who founds it, the father. What first brought man experientially to creation as a work of love was fatherhood. This view is not altered by the fact that the father, in order to preserve, or, what is the same, to continue to produce, to bring up, must command, force, punish. If the family depends on no higher right, it yet appears as the first state, and then the father appears not only as father, but also as king" (75. 119).
The occurrence to-day of "King" as a surname takes us back to a time when the head of the family enjoyed the proud title, which the Romans conferred upon Cæsar Augustus, Pater et Princeps, the natural development from Ovid's virque paterque gregis.
The Romans called their senators patres, and we now speak of the "city fathers," aldermen, _elder_men, in older English, and the "fathers" of many a primitive people are its rulers and legislators. The term "father" we apply also to those who were monarchs and chiefs in realms of human activity other than that of politics. Following in the footsteps of the Latins, who spoke of Zeno as Pater stoicorum, of Herodotus as Pater historioe, and even of the host of an inn as Pater cenoe, we speak of "fathering" an idea, a plot, and the like, and denominate "father," the pioneer scientists, inventors, sages, poets, chroniclers of the race.
From pater the Romans derived patrimonium, patrimony, "what was inherited from the father," an interesting contrast to matrimonium; patronus, "patron, defender, master of slaves"; patria (terra), "fatherland,"—Ovid uses paterna terra, and Horace speaks of paternum flumen; patricius, "of fatherly dignity, high-born, patrician," etc. Word after word in the classic tongues speaks of the exalted position of the father, and many of these have come into our own language through the influence of the peoples of the Mediterranean.
Father-Priest.
Said Henry Ward Beecher: "Look at home, father-priest, mother-priest; your church is a hundred-fold heavier responsibility than mine can be. Your priesthood is from God's own hands." The priesthood of the father is widespread. Mr. Gomme tells us: "Certainly among the Hindus, the Greeks, the Romans, and, so late down as Tacitus, the Germans, the house-father was priest and judge in his own clan" (461.104). Max Müller speaks to the same effect: "If we trace religion back to the family, the father or head of the family is ipso facto the priest. When families grew into clans, and clans into tribes and confederacies, a necessity would arise of delegating to some heads of families the performance of duties which, from having been the spontaneous acts of individuals, had become the traditional acts of families and clans" (510.183). Africa, Asia, America, furnish us abundant evidence of this. Our own language testifies to it also. We speak of the "Fathers of the Church,"—patres, as they were called,—and the term "Father" is applied to an ecclesiastic of the Roman Catholic Church, just as in the Romance languages of Europe the descendants of the Latin pater (French pere, Spanish padre, Italian padre, etc.) are used to denote the same personage. In Russian an endearing term for "priest" is batyushka, "father dear"; the word for a village-priest, sometimes used disrespectfully, is pop. This latter name is identical with the title of the head of the great Catholic Church, the "Holy Father," at Rome, viz. papa, signifying literally "papa, father," given in the early days of Latin Christianity, and the source of our word Pope and its cognates in the various tongues of modern Europe. The head of an abbey we call an abbot, a name coming, through the Church-Latin abbas, from the Syriac abba, "father"; here again recurs the correlation of priest and father. It is interesting to note that both the words papa and abba, which we have just discussed, and which are of such importance in the history of religion, are child-words for "father," bearing evidence of the lasting influence of the child in this sphere of human activity. Among the ancient Romans we find a pater patratus, whose duty it was to ratify treaties with the proper religious rites. Dr. von Held is of opinion that, "in the case of a special priesthood, it is not so much the character of its members as spiritual fathers, as their calling of servants of God, of servants of a Father-God, which causes them to be termed fathers, papas" (75. 120).
Father-God.
Shakespeare has aptly said, in the words which Theseus addresses to the fair Hermia:—
"To you your father should be as a god;
One that composed your beauties, yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax,
By him imprinted, and within his power
To leave the figure or disfigure it,"