πατήρ

πατήρ (pater, "pah-TAIR"), the Greek word for father, gets a broad, deep life in the record: 4,034 occurrences across 156 works. It lives first in the epics and then in scripture. The Odyssey leads with 220, then Genesis (214), the Iliad (195), the Gospel of John (137), Herodotus's Histories (118), and Paralipomenon II — the Greek Chronicles — with 115. The word runs from the household of the epics into the genealogies of Genesis: at once the man who begot you and the line of fathers behind him.

The lexica agree the core sense is not in doubt. LSJ (Liddell–Scott–Jones, 1940) glosses it "father, grandfather, by the father's side," and preserves πατρὸς πατήρ (patros pater, "father's father") for grandfather at Iliad 14.118 — the word folds back on itself to name a generation. Beekes (Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill 2010) gives simply "father." Chantraine (Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, 1968–80) catalogues the family: μητροπάτωρ (metropator, "maternal grandfather") and προπάτωρ (propator, "forefather, ancestor"). He notes the word's valeur sociale et religieuse — its social and religious weight, inherited from Indo-European — pointing to the cult address πάτερ Ζεῦ (pater Zeu, "Father Zeus") and the formula πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε (pater andron te theon te, "father of men and of gods").

On the etymology, three authorities are matched, all treating πατήρ directly: Beekes, Chantraine, and Frisk (Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 1960–72). In Beekes's view the inherited form is *ph₂tér, "father," with the genitive πατρός (patros) and accusative πατέρα (patera). Frisk records the Mycenaean form pa-te, already on the Linear B tablets: among the oldest words Greek has.

The gathered surfaces run through the New Testament — 1 Corinthians and 1 John — where πατήρ, "the Father," becomes a name for God, and πατρός, "of the father," opens the letter's greeting.

If one word must carry both the man who fathered you and the god called Father, which sense was there first?