PATRIARCH, Patriarcha, one of those first fathers who lived towards the beginning of the world, and became famous by their long lines of descendants. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and bis twelve sons, are the patriarchs of the Old Testament; Seth, Enoch, and others, were antediluvian patriarchs. The authority of patriarchal government existed in the fathers of families, and their first-born after them, who exercised all kinds of ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction in their respective households; and to this government, which lasted till the time when the Israelites sojourned in Egypt, some have ascribed an absolute and despotic power, extending even to the punishment of death. In proof of this is produced the curse pronounced by Noah upon Canaan but it must be observed, that in this affair Noah seems to have acted rather as a prophet than a patriarch. Another instance of supposed despotic power is Abraham’s turning Hagar and Ishmael out of his family; 2 but this can hardly be thought to furnish evidence of any singular authority vested in the patriarchs, as such, and peculiar to those early ages. The third instance brought forward to the same purpose is that of Jacob’s denouncing a curse upon Simeon and Levi, 3 which is maintained by others to be an instance of prophetic inspiration rather than of patriarchal power. The fourth instance is that of Judah with regard to Tamar, 4 in reference to which it has been remarked, that Jacob, the father of Judah, was still living; that Tamar was not one of his own family; that she had been guilty of adultery, the punishment of which was death by burning; and that Judah on this occasion might speak only as a prosecutor, not as a judge. Upon the whole, however, it is difficult to say which of these opinions is most agreeable to truth. Men who believe that the origin of civil government, and the obligation to obedience, arise from a supposed original contract, either real or implied, will be naturally led to weaken the authority of the patriarchs; and those, again, who consider government as a divine institution, will be as apt to exalt that authority to the highest pitch that either reason or Scripture will permit them. It cannot be denied, that authority existed in fathers, and descended to their first-born, in the primitive ages of the world; and it is neither unnatural nor improbable to imagine, that the idea of hereditary power and hereditary honours was first taken from this circumstance. Bu s t whether authority has descended through father and son in this way to our times, is a circumstance that cannot in one instance be asserted, and may be denied in a thousand. The real source of the dignity and of the authority of modern times seems to have been skill in the art of war, and success in. the management of conquests.

Jewish Patriarch, a dignity, respecting the origin of which there have been a variety of opinions; some thinking it of very ancient institution, whilst others contend that it is not older than the time of Nerva, the successor of Domitian. It seems probable that the patriarchs were of the Aaronic or Levitical race; the tribe of Judah being at that time too much depressed, and too obnoxious to the Romans, to be able to assume any external power. But of whatever tribe they were, their authority came to be very considerable. Their principal business was to instruct the people; and for this purpose they instituted schools in several cities. Having gained great reputation for extraordinary learning, zeal, and piety, they might, in time, not only have brought a great concourse of other Jews from foreign parts, as from Egypt and other western provinces of their dispersion, but likewise have proved the means of their patriarchal authority being acknowledged there. From these they at length ventured to levy a kind of tribute, in order to defray the charges of their dignity, and of the officers under them, whose business it was to carry their orders and decisions through the other provinces of the dispersion, and to see them punctually executed by all, that some shadow of union at least might be kept up amongst the western Jews. They likewise nominated the doctors who were to preside over their schools and academies; and these were in process of time styled chiefs and princes, in order to raise the credit of their dignity, or to imply the great regard which their disciples were to pay to them. These chiefs became at length rivals of the patriarchs; and some of them possessed both dignities at once, an usurpation which not only caused great confusion, but oftentimes very violent and bloody contests. However, as the Jewish Rabbin have trumped up a much older era for this patriarchal dignity, and have furnished us with a succession of patriarchs down to the fifth century, in which it was abolished, it may not be amiss to give our readers the substance of what they have written on the rise and progress of this order of men; at the same time showing the absurdity and falsehood of the pretended succession to this imaginary dignity.

According to the Rabbin, the first patriarch was Hillel, surnamed the Babylonian, because he was sent for from thence to Jerusalem about a hundred years before the ruin of their capital, or thirty years before the birth of Christ, to decide a dispute about the keeping of Easter, which on that day fell upon the Sabbath-day; and it was on account of his wise decision that he was raised to that dignity, which continued in his family till the fifth century. He was likewise looked upon as a second Moses, because, like the Jewish legislator, he lived forty years in obscurity, forty more in great reputation for learning and sanctity, and forty more in possession of this patriarchal dignity. They reckon him little inferior to that lawgiver in other excellencies, as well as in the great authority he gained over the whole Jewish nation. The wonder is, how Herod the Great, who was naturally so jealous, could suffer a stranger to be raised to such a height of power, barely for having decided a dispute which must in all likelihood have been adjudged by others long before that time.

However, Hillel was succeeded by his son Simeon, whom many Christians consider to have been the venerable old person of that name who received the divine infant in his arms. The Jews give him but a very obscure patriarchate, although the authors above quoted make him, also, chief of the Sanhedrim; and Epiphanius says, that the priestly tribe hated him so much for giving testimony to the divine l Genesis, ix. 25. 2 Genesis, xxi. 9, &c. 3 Genesis, xlix. 7∙ 4 Genesis, xxxviii. 24.
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child, that they denied him the rites of common sepulture. But it is hardly credible that St Luke should have so carelessly passed over his twofold dignity, if he had been really possessed of such, and have given him no higher title than that of a just and devout man.

He was succeeded by Jochonan, not in right of descent, but of his extraordinary merit, which the Rabbin, according to custom, have raised to so surprising a height, that, according to them, if the whole heavens were paper, all the trees in the world pens, and all the men writers, they would not suffice to record all his lessons. He enjoyed his dignity but two years according to some, or five according to others; and was the person who, observing the gates of the temple to open of their own accord, cried out, “0 temple, temple, why art thou thus moved? We know that thou art to be destroyed, seeing Zechariah hath foretold it, saying, ‘ Open thy gates, O Libanus, and let the flames consume thy cedars.’” Upon this he is further reported to have complimented Vespasian, or rather, as some have corrected the story, Titus, with the title of king; assuring him that it was a royal person who was to destroy that edifice, on which account they pretend that the Roman general gave him leave to remove the Sanhedrim to Japhne.

The Jewish writers add, that he likewise erected an academy there, which subsisted until the death of Akiba; that this was likewise the seat of the patriarch, and contained three hundred schools, or classes of scholars. Another he erected at Lydda, not far from Japhne, and where the Christians buried their far-famed St George. He lived an hundred and twenty years, and being asked what he had done to prolong his life, he returned this curious answer: “ I never made water nearer a house of prayer than four cubits; I never disguised my name; I have taken care to celebrate all festivals; and my mother has even sold my head ornaments to buy wine enough to make me merry on such days, leaving me at her death three hundred hogsheads of it to sanctify the Sabbath.” The doctors who flourished in his time were no less considerable, both for their number and character, particularly the famed Rabbi Chanina, of whom the Bath Col was heard to say, that the world was preserved for the sake of him; and Nicoemus, whom they pretend to have stopped the course of the sun, like another Joshua.

He was succeeded by Gamaliel, a man, according to them, of insufferable pride, and yet of so universal authority over all the Jews, not only in the west, but throughout the whole world, that the very monarchs suffered his laws to be obeyed in their dominions, not one of them offering to obstruct the execution of them. In his days flourished Samuel the Less, who composed a prayer full of the bitterest curses against heretics (meaning the Christians), which are still in use to this day. Gamaliel was no less an enemy to them; and yet both have been challenged, the former as the celebrated master of the great apostle of the Gentiles, the other as his disciple in his unconverted state.

Simeon II., his son and successor, was the first martyr who died during the siege of Jerusalem. The people so regretted his death, that an order was given, instead of ten bumpers of wine, which were usually drank at the funeral of a saint, to drink thirteen at his, on account of his martyrdom. These bumpers were in time multiplied, they tell us, to such shameful height, that the Sanhedrim was forced to make some new regulations for preventing so great an abuse.

These are the patriarchs which, the Rabbin tell us, preceded the destruction of the temple; and we need no farther confutation of this pretended dignity than the silence of the sacred historians, who not only make not the least mention of it, but assure us all along that they were the high priests who presided in the Sanhedrim, and before whom all cases relating to the Jewish religion were brought to be decided. It was the high priest that examined and condemned our Saviour, that condemned St Stephen, that - forbade the apostles to preach in Christ’s name, and that sat as judge on the great apostle at the head of that supreme court. The same may be urged from Josephus, who must needs have known and mentioned this pretended dignity, if any such had existed; and yet he is so far from taking the least notice of it, that, like the evangelists, he places the pontiffs alone at the head of all the Jewish affairs, and names the high priest Ananus as having had the care and direction of the war against the Romans; an evident proof that there were then no such patriarchs in existence.

To all this let us add, that if there had been any such remarkable succession, the Talmudists would have preserved it to future ages; whereas neither they, nor any of the ancient authors of the Jewish church, make any mention of it, but only some of their doctors, who wrote a considerable time afterwards, writers to whom little credit can be given in points of this nature, especially as there are such insurmountable contradictions amongst them, as no authors, either Jewish or Christian, have, with all their pains, been hitherto able to reconcile.

Upon the whole, it appears that, however much Jewish pride may have prompted them to falsify, and to claim an origin more ancient than it really was, they cannot be traced much farther back than the time of Nerva. Nor have the Jews been faithful in giving an account of the authority of these men. They have indeed exaggerated their power beyond all bounds, in the hope of repelling the arguments of Christians; for their power was far more showy than substantial. In time, however, they certainly imposed upon the people; and what power they did possess in such matters as were connected with religion, they exercised with great rigour. In particular, their pecuniary demands became very exorbitant; and this was the cause of their final suppression in the year 429.

Patriarchs, amongst Christians, are ecclesiastical dignitaries, or bishops, so called from their paternal authority in the church. The power of patriarchs was not the same in all, but differed according to the different customs of countries, or the pleasure of kings and councils. Thus the patriarch of Constantinople grew to be supreme over the patriarchs of Ephesus and Caesarea, and was called the oecumenical or universal patriarch; and the patriarch of Alexandria had some prerogatives which no other patriarch but himself enjoyed, such as the right of consecrating and approving every single bishop under his jurisdiction.

The patriarchate has ever been esteemed the supreme dignity in the church. The bishop had only under him the territory of the city of which he was bishop; the metropolitan superintended a province, and had for suffragans the bishops of his province; the primate was the chief of what was then called a diocese, and had several metropolitans under him; but the patriarch had under him several dioceses, composing one exarchate, and the primates themselves were under him.

Usher, Pagi, De Marca, and Morinus, attribute the establishment of the grand patriarchates to the apostles themselves, who, according to the description of the world then given by geographers, pitched upon the three principal cities in the three parts of the known world, Rome in Europe, Antioch in Asia, and Alexandria in Africa, and thus formed a trinity of patriarchs. Others maintain that the name patriarch was unknown at the time of the council of Nice; and that for a long time afterwards patriarchs and primates were confounded together, as being all equally chiefs of dioceses, and equally superior to metropolitans[7:17:142], who were only chiefs of provinces. Hence Socrates gives the title patriarch to all the chiefs of dioceses, of whom he reckons ten. Indeed it does not appear that the dignity of patriarch was appropriated to the five grand sees of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, till after the council of Chalcedon in 451; for when the council of Nice regulated the limits and prerogatives of the three patriarchs of Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria, it did not give them the title of patriarchs, though it allowed them pre-eminence and privileges as such; and hence, when the council of Constantinople adjudged the second place to the bishop of Constantinople, who till then was only a suffragan of Heraclea, it said nothing of the patriarchate. Nor is the term patriarch found in the decree of the council of Chalcedon, by which the fifth place is assigned to the bishop of Jerusalem; nor did these five patriarchs govern all the churches.

There were, besides, many independent chiefs of dioceses, who, far from owning the jurisdiction of the grand patriarchs, called themselves patriarchs ; such as that of Aquileia; nor was Carthage ever subject to the patriarch of Alexandria. Mosheim^[1. Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 284. ] imagines, that those bishops who enjoyed a certain degree of pre-eminence over the rest of their order, were distinguished by the Jewish title of patriarchs in the fourth century. The authority of the patriarchs gradually increased, till about the close of the fifth century, when all affairs of moment within the compass of their patriarchate came before them, either at first hand or by appeals from the metropolitans. The consecrated bishops assembled yearly in council the clergy of their respective districts; pronounced a decisive judgment on those cases where accusations were brought against bishops; and appointed vicars or deputies, clothed with their authority, for the preservation of order and tranquillity in the remoter provinces. In short, nothing was done without consulting them; and their decrees were executed with the same regularity and respect as those of the princes.

It deserves to be remarked, however, that the authority of the patriarchs was not acknowledged throughout all the provinces without exception. Several districts, both in the eastern and the western empire, were exempted from their jurisdiction. The Latin church had no patriarchs till the sixth century; and the churches of Gaul, Britain, and other countries, were never subject to the authority of the patriarch of Rome, whose authority only extended to the nearer provinces. There was no primacy, no exarchate nor patriarchate, owned here; but the bishops, with the metropolitans, governed the church in common. Indeed, after the name of patriarch became frequent in the west, it was attributed to the bishops of Bourges and Lyons; but it was only in the primary signification, namely, as heads of dioceses. Du Cange says, that there were some abbots who bore the title of patriarchs.