1 Thessalonians 2:11-12
As you know, we treated each one of you as a father
treats
his children, exhorting and encouraging you and
insisting that you conduct yourselves as worthy of the
God who calls you into his kingdom and glory.
The faithful of the Church
has always called their ordered
leadership
"father." In Greek, the language of the early Church,
the word for father was pappas;
in Latin, the language of the
later Church, the word for
father was papa.
By the 300s, bishops were
sometimes called "pope" a
corruption of the word for
father.
By the 700s the title for
affection and respect for the Bishop
of Rome exclusively was Pope.