[f. next: see -CRAT. Cf. mod.F. théocrate (Littré).]
1. One who rules in a theocracy as the representative of the Deity; a divine or deified ruler.
1827. G. S. Faber, Orig. Expiat. Sacr., 234. This mode of administering temporal sanctions on the part of the temporal theocrat of Israel.
1854. Milman, Lat. Chr., VI. iii. (1864), III. 482. Admirers of the great theocrat [Pope Gregory].
1862. Westm. Rev., Jan., 269. Mahomet gradually degenerated … ultimately into a voluptuous tyrant and oppressive theocrat.
1874. Reynolds, John Baptist, viii. 490. The haughty theocrats of Persia dared to call on their subjects to adore them.
2. One who believes in or favors theocratic government; an advocate of theocracy.
1843. Emerson, Misc. Papers, Carlyle, Wks. (Bohn), III. 313. Though no theocrat … Mr. Carlyle … finds the calamity of the times not in bad bills of Parliament, nor the remedy in good bills.
1895. Q. Rev., Oct., 355. Disraeli … was a born theocrat.
1897. Goldw. Smith, in Amer. Hist. Rev., Oct., 138. For all but the aristocracy and extreme theocrats they must have been about the best years that Scotland had known.
¶ b. See quot. (? erroneous use).
1864. Webster, Theocrat, one who obeys God as his civil ruler.
1882. Ogilvie (Annandale), Theocrat, one who lives under a theocracy; one who is ruled in civil affairs directly by God.
