[ad. eccl. Gr. θεαρχία, f. θεός God + -αρχία a ruling.]
1. The rule or government of God or of a god; a theocracy.
1643. Subject of Supremacie, etc., 42. There ends Monarchy as a Thearchie, or divine dynastie.
c. 1643. Maximes Unfolded, 8. Thearchie, or Gods Government in Families, a Nation, and all Nations.
1863. Whyte-Melville, Gladiators, I. 254. His [the Jew’s] belief in that direct thearchy, to which he was bound by the ties of gratitude.
2. An order or system of deities. (Cf. HIERARCHY 1, 3.)
1839. Bailey, Festus, i. (1852), 11. From rank to rank in Thearchy divine, We angel raylets gladden in thy sight.
1876. Gladstone, Homeric Synchr., 245. Pan was one of the younger gods in the Hellenic thearchy.
1899. Literary Guide, 1 Dec., 178/1. When Jesus entered upon his ministry, the Olympian thearchy … was already tottering to its fall.
