BROTHER, Frater, a term of relation between two male children, sprung from the same father, or mother, or both. Scaliger and Vossius derive frater from φράτης, for φράτης, which properly signifies a person who draws water in the same well; φράτης, in Greek, signifying well, and φράτης, a company of people, who have a right to draw water out of the same well. The word, it is said, came originally from the city Argos, where there were only a few wells distributed in certain quarters of the city, to which those of the same neighbourhood alone repaired.
By the civil law, brothers and sisters stand in the second degree of consanguinity; by the canon law, they are in the first degree.—By the Mosaic law, the brother of a man who died without issue was obliged to marry the widow of the deceased. Deuter. xxv. 7.
The ancients applied the term brother indifferently to almost all who stood related in the collateral line, as uncles and nephews, cousin-germans, &c.—This we learn not only from a great many passages in the Old Testament, but also from profane authors: Cicero, in his Philippics, says, "Antonia was both wife and sister of Mark Antony; because she was daughter of his brother C. Antonius." And as to cousins, Tullus Hostilius, in Dionysius Halicarnassus, calls the Hora-
tii and Curitii, brothers; because they were sisters' children. Brother.
The language of the Jews, Bishop Pearson observes, included in the name of brethren not only the strict relation of fraternity, but also the larger of consanguinity. We are brethren, says Abraham to Lot, Gen. xiii. 8. whereas Lot was only his nephew.—So Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's brother, Gen. xxix. 12. where he was only her father's nephew.—This consideration has been urged with good advantage against the Antidicomarianites, who, from the mention made of the brethren of Jesus, John ii. 12. Matth. xii. 46. have impugned the perpetual virginity of the mother of Christ.
Among us, it is customary for kings to give the title brother to each other; the unction in coronation being esteemed to create a kind of brotherhood. Nor is the custom modern: Menander mentions a letter of Cosroes king of Persia to the emperor Justinian, beginning thus: Cosroes, king of kings, &c. to the emperor Justinian my brother.—Kings now also give the same appellation to the electors of the empire; and the like was given by the king of France to the late king of Sardinia, while only duke of Savoy.
In the civil law, brothers, fratres, in the plural, sometimes comprehends sisters: as Lucius et Titia, fratres; tres fratres, Titius, Mævius, et Seio.
Father-Brothers, those who sucked the same nurse. The French call them fratres du lait, or brothers by milk; which is most properly used in respect of a person who sucked a nurse at the same time with the nurse's own child.