THEOCRACY means "rule by God" and refers to a type of government in which God or gods are thought to have sovereignty, or to any state so governed. The concept has been widely applied to such varied cases as pharaonic Egypt, ancient Israel, medieval Christendom, Calvinism, Islam, and Tibetan Buddhism.

The word was first coined in the Greek language (theokratia) by the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius around 100 CE. Josephus noted that while the nations of the world were variously governed by monarchies, oligarchies, and democracies, the polity of the Jews was theocracy. This, he thought, went back to Moses, who was not attracted by the model of these other polities and therefore "designated his government a theocracy—as someone might say, forcing an expression—thus attributing the rule and dominion to God" (Against Apion 2.165).

From Josephus's coinage the term found its way into modern languages, though most early...