Hierocracy

Theocracy is a form of government in which a deity is the source from which all authority derives. The Oxford English Dictionary has this definition:

1. a system of government in which priests rule in the name of God or a god.

1.1. the commonwealth of Israel from the time of Moses until the election of Saul as King.

An ecclesiocracy is a situation where the religious leaders assume a leading role in the state, but do not claim that they are instruments of divine revelation: for example, the prince-bishops of the European Middle Ages, where the bishop was also the temporal ruler. Such a state may use the administrative hierarchy of the religion for its own administration, or it may have two 'arms'—administrators and clergy—but with the state administrative hierarchy subordinate to the religious hierarchy. Theocracy differs from theonomy, the latter of which is government based on divine law.

The papacy in the Papal States occupied a middle ground between theocracy and ecclesiocracy, since the Pope did not claim he was a prophet who received revelation from God and translated it into civil law.

Religiously endorsed monarchies fall between theocracy and ecclesiocracy, according to the relative strengths of the religious and political organs.

Most forms of theocracy are oligarchic in nature, involving rule of the many by the few, some of whom so anointed under claim of divine commission.

The word theocracy originates from the Greek θεοκρατία meaning "the rule of God". This in turn derives from (theos), meaning "god", and (krateo), meaning "to rule." Thus the meaning of the word in Greek was "rule by god(s)" or human incarnation(s) of god(s).

The term was initially coined by Flavius Josephus in the first century A.D. to describe the characteristic government of the Jews. Josephus argued that while mankind had developed many forms of rule, most could be subsumed under the following three types: monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy. The government of the Jews, however, was unique. Josephus offered the term "theocracy" to describe this polity, ordained by Moses, in which God is sovereign and his word is law.

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