glican bishop William Warburton, in his Divine Legation of
Moses Demonstrated (1737–1741), engaged in a long discus-
sion of Israelite theocracy.
Impetus for wider use of the word came from G. W. F.
Hegel’s Philosophy of History, where the term was employed
to describe that early phase of ancient oriental civilization in
which there was no distinction between religion and the
state. In the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
the term became what Karl Mannheim called a Kampfbegriff,
by which “enlightened” contempt for “priest-ridden” socie-
ties could be expressed. It was with something of this force
that it was used by W. E. H. Lecky in his History of Rational-
ism (1865) and by Brooks Adams in The Emancipation of
Massachusetts (1887).
Theocracy has not become a rigorously defined concept
in either social science or the history of religions, although
the term is frequently used in historical writing. This is prob-
ably because it does not name a governmental system or
structure, parallel to monarchy or democracy, but designates
a certain kind of placement of the ultimate source of state
authority, regardless of the form of government. In biblical
studies, where the notion of theocracy has had its longest
currency, it has probably also been used with the greatest
consistency and fruitfulness.
This article deals with the various meanings that the
term theocracy may be usefully given, with examples relevant
to each meaning: hierocracy, or rule by religious function-
aries; royal theocracy, or rule by a sacred king; general theoc-
racy, or rule in a more general sense by a divine will or law;
and eschatological theocracy, or future rule by the divine.
HIEROCRACY. Theocracy has often been used as a term to de-
scribe societies where the clergy or priests rule, but this is not
the exact denotation of the word, and another word,
hierocracy, is available for such situations. Some have called
this “pure” theocracy. Among such theocracies, a distinction
can be made between those in which the religious function-
aries who exercise rule are priestly in character and those in
which they are more prophetic-charismatic.
Theocracies of this type have not been very numerous.
Several of the stages in the history of ancient Israel exemplify
it: the early period, beginning with the Sinai covenant and
continuing with the leadership of Moses and Aaron; the reli-
gious confederation of the tribal amphictyony; and the char-
ismatic (though occasional) leadership of the Judges down
to the time of Samuel. Thus, Israel had strongly theocratic
elements, in the sense of rule by religious functionaries. Cen-
turies later, after the return from exile in the late sixth centu-
ry BCE, a theocracy emerged with the priestly leadership of
the generations after Ezra. The priestly theocratic pattern be-
came so important among the Jews at this time that the later
Hasmoneans legitimated their rule by claiming the high
priesthood. This was the case until the end of the rule of Al-
exander Yannai over the small Jewish state in 67 BCE.
This kind of theocracy has been rare in Christianity,
which grew up as a clandestine religion at odds with a hostile
state. Nonetheless, a kind of theocracy in the sense of priestly
rule appeared in the Papal States of central Italy and lasted
for over a millennium (756–1870). However, this situation
was not usually thought of as a prototype of the ideal but,
rather more pragmatically, as a way of securing the indepen-
dence of church authority, centered in Rome, from interfer-
ence and control by secular powers. Another Christian exam-
ple of pure theocracy can be found in the early years of the
Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons, in the United States, where
the prophetic leaders (first Joseph Smith and then Brigham
Young) exercised religious and temporal authority in the life
of the community, both in earlier settlements and then in
Salt Lake City.
The early years of Islam, under the prophet Muh:ammad
and his first successors, the caliphs, were also theocratic in
the sense that there was rule by the religious leadership,
though it was not a priestly but a prophetic-charismatic lead-
ership. It is, however, difficult to say at exactly what point
the caliphate ceased to be a primarily religious institution.
Tibetan Buddhism has often been cited as an example
of priestly theocracy. After the thirteenth century, Tibet was
ruled by various elements of the Buddhist priesthood; in the
seventeenth century, the Dge lugs pa sect gained the tempo-
ral rule of the land and governed through the Dalai and
Panchen lamas, as successive incarnations of Avalokite ́svara
and Amita ̄bha Buddha, respectively, until the Chinese Com-
munist invasion destroyed this pattern in 1959. The Dalai
Lama was the principal ruler from his capital at Lhasa, and
administration was exercised by him (or by a regent ruling
in his name when a new Dalai Lama was being sought)
through a cabinet composed partly of monks.
Many short-lived communal and revolutionary move-
ments inspired by religion have functioned as pure theocra-
cies. Examples of this include the Taiping Rebellion in
China in 1858; the seizure of Khartoum in the Sudan by a
claimant to the role of the Mahdi in 1885; and the People’s
Temple of Jim Jones, which was established in Guyana in
1977, only to end in mass suicide.
ROYAL THEOCRACY. Rule by a king thought to possess di-
vine status or power, or to be entrusted by God with authori-
ty over the earth, is a second kind of theocracy. Such sacred
kingship has many ramifications beyond what can be consid-
ered in relation to the concept of theocracy. Traditional
Japan was ruled by such a royal theocracy, the emperors
being regarded as descendants of the sun goddess Amaterasu.
Some societies of the ancient world were theocratic in this
sense: the ancient Mesopotamian kings were regarded as cho-
sen servants and regents of the gods, and the Egyptian pha-
raohs were thought to be directly descended from the sun
god, who had created the earth and had at first ruled it per-
sonally, later ruling it through them. In both Egypt and Mes-
opotamia, as well as among other ancient peoples, kings also
fulfilled many important roles in ritual, thus acting as inter-
mediaries between men and the gods. Analogies have fre-
quently been drawn between ancient Near Eastern sacredTHEOCRACY 9109