Definition of "thearchy"

thearchy

noun
countable and uncountable, plural thearchies
1. A government ruled by God or a god; a theocracy.
  Quotations
  There ends Monarchy as a Thearchie, or divine dynastie.
  1643, Subject of Supremacie, section 42
  Thearchie, or Gods Government in Families, a Nation, and all Nations.
  1643, Maximes Unfolded, section 8
  [The Jew's] belief in that direct thearchy, to which he was bound by the ties of gratitude.
  1863, G.J. Whyte-Melville, Gladiators, I 254
2. A system or ordering of deities. (Compare pantheon.)
  Quotations
  From rank to rank in Thearchy divine, We angel raylets gladden in thy sight.
  1852, P.J. Bailey, Festus, section 11
  Pan was one of the younger gods in the Hellenic thearchy.
  1876, W.E. Gladstone, Homeric Synchronism, section 245
  When Jesus entered upon his ministry, the Olympian thearchy […] was already tottering to its fall.
  1899 December 1, Literary Guide, 178 1