† philopatern.

Etymology: < post-classical Latin philopater (from 8th cent. as an epithet of Egyptian rulers; in classical Latin as philopatōr ) < ancient Greek ϕιλοπάτωρ loving one's father (frequently in Hellenistic Greek as an epithet of Egyptian rulers) < ϕιλό- philo- comb. form + πατήρ father, ancestor (see pater n.¹). Compare Hellenistic Greek ϕιλόπατρις loving one's country.The Jesuit controversialist Robert Parsons used the Latin epithet as part of the pseudonym ‘Andreas Philopater ’ in his Elizabethæ Reginæ Angliæ Edictum (1592); quots. 1635 and 1643 are probably both rebuking Protestant allusions to that work. The Latin epithet was subsequently used by the authors of a number of pamphlets in the period between the end of the first civil war and the Restoration. Philopatris is also used as an epithet in early modern England. In 1592 Joseph Cresswell published a pamphlet modelled on Parsons' under the pseudonym ‘Johannes Philopatris’, and James I used the pseudonym ‘C. Φιλοπατρις’ for Trewe Lawe Free Monarchies (1598); the epithet became particularly common after the Restoration.