Also 7 -craty, 7–8 -crasie, -crasy. [ad. Gr. θεοκρατία (Josephus): see THEO- and -CRACY: cf. F. théocratie (1704 in Hatz.-Darm.).] A form of government in which God (or a deity) is recognized as the king or immediate ruler, and his laws are taken as the statute-book of the kingdom, these laws being usually administered by a priestly order as his ministers and agents; hence (loosely) a system of government by a sacerdotal order, claiming a divine commission; also, a state so governed: esp. applied to the commonwealth of Israel from the exodus to the election of Saul as king.
1622. Donne, Serm. (ed. Alford), V. 209. The Jews were only under a Theocraty, an immediate Government of God.
a. 1652. J. Smith, Sel. Disc., VII. iv. (1821), 346. Josephus … properly calls the Jewish government θεοκρατίαν, ‘a theocracy,’ or ‘the government of God himself.’
1737. Winston, Josephus, Agst. Apion, II. § 17 (1814), IV. 340. He [Moses] ordained our government to be what, by a strained expression, may be termed a Theocracy [ὡς δ’ ἄν τίς εἵποι βιασάμενος τὸν λόγον, θεοκρατίαν].
1741. Warburton, Div. Legat., V. ii. II. 365. Thus the Almighty becoming their King, in as proper a Sense as he was their God, the Republic of the Israelites was properly a Theocracy; in which the two Societies, Civil and Religious, must … be intirely incorporated.
1811. Pinkerton, Mod. Geog., Peru (ed. 3), 694. The government of the incas was a kind of theocracy.
1836. J. H. Newman, Par. Serm. (ed. 2), II. xxi. 283. When they tired of the Christian Theocracy, and clothed the church with ‘the purple robe’ of Cæsar.
1863. Stanley, Jew. Ch., vii. 155. The ‘Theocracy’ of Moses … was a government by God Himself, as opposed to the government by priests or kings.
1864. Burton, Scot Abr., I. v. 276. It [the Church of Calvin] was a theocracy, dictating to all men the rule of the Deity as to their daily life.
1878. Maclear, Celts, ii. (1879), 17. The Druids were at once the ministers of a theocracy and the judges and legislators of the people.
b. transf. A priestly order or religious body exercising political or civil power.
1825. Wellington, Desp. (1867), II. 597. The Roman Catholic clergy, nobility, lawyers, and gentlemen having property, form a sort of theocracy in Ireland, which in all essential points governs the populace.
