archegete

plural archegetes · alternative archegetes

1. The founder, progenitor, originator of a group, tradition, or institution.

   That Antisthenes was the archegete of « the more manly section of the Stoic school » agrees with the suggestions evoked by the title Heracles.

   1986, Elenchos, page 339

   3 more examples

   Lakulīśa (varr. lakuleśa, nakulīśa), which is used as an epithet of Śiva and as the name of that incarnation of Śiva who was the archegete of the Pāśupatas, means literally ‘lord (īśa) of the club (lakula).’

   1962, The Harvard Theological Review, page 296

   Aphidnos was the archegete and perhaps the first ancestor of the people of Aphidna; he expresses in individualised form their claim to be descended from the original inhabitants.

   1989, Emily Kearns, The Heroes of Attica, page 112

   The first, and in some ways the most significant, example is offered by Id. 1, which is centred, as we know, around the figure of Daphnis who, according to Timaeus, was the archegete of bucolic poetry.

   2006, Brill's Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral, page 54