φιλάδελφος

From the study of 1 Peter 3:8

Range of meaning

From philos 'loving, dear' and adelphos 'brother, sibling'. In ordinary Greek it meant loving one's actual brothers and sisters. It was a recognised family virtue: Plutarch wrote a whole essay 'On Brotherly Love', and the Ptolemaic king Ptolemy II took the title Philadelphos. Jews and then Christians extended it to fellow members of the people of God.

Against the English

'Love as brothers' (BSB, KJV, WEB) can sound like a comparison: love them as though they were brothers. The Greek adjective describes people who love their siblings, so it assumes fellow believers already are siblings. NIV's 'love one another' loses the family idea altogether. 'Brothers' is grammatically masculine but covers sisters too, as the Greek plural normally did.

How it drifted

Reading it as 'like brothers' turns family from a reality into a metaphor.

Used elsewhere in the period

This is the only use of the adjective in the New Testament. The noun philadelphia appears in 1 Pet 1:22 ('sincere love of the brothers'), Rom 12:10, 1 Thess 4:9, Heb 13:1 and 2 Pet 1:7. In 2 Macc 15:14 the prophet Jeremiah is called 'the lover of the brothers', meaning of the Jewish people. 4 Maccabees 13–14 praises the philadelphia of the martyred brothers.