TEOCRASIA. — From the Greek θεός, god, and κρᾶσις, fusion, in its primary meaning the term (used by Iamblichus, Vita Pythagorae, 33, 240, and by Damascius, Vita Isidori, 5, in Photius, Bibl., CCXLII 526) denotes that intimate union (ἔνωσις παντελῆς) of the soul with God which, in Neoplatonic and theurgic thought, was the supreme end of philosophical speculation. The term belongs to the later Neoplatonists and never appears in Plotinus, who nevertheless was, in the ancient classical world, one of the earliest theorists of mystical experience (Eun., V, 8, 11; VI, 9, 9-10).
Its second meaning, in distinctly modern usage, belongs to the field of the history of religions and signifies the tendency to fuse several divinities into one. This tendency seems to have been characteristic of the Hellenic genius, in contrast with the Semitic race, which its own monotheism inclined toward determined intransigence. Even to Herodotus it seemed natural to find in Egypt his own gods: Artemis in Bubastis (II, 137), Apollo in Horus, Dionysus in Osiris (II, 144): if these divinities exist, then they must be worshipped, under different names, among the various peoples of the earth. But t. was not merely the symptom of an attitude of religious tolerance: above all, it was the expression of a profound unitary impulse, which operated particularly in Orphism (v. ORFICI MISTER). A fragment, probably very ancient, fuses Zeus, Hades, Helios, and Dionysus into a single divinity: εἰς Ζεύς, εἰς Λάθης, εἰς Ἠλίας, εἰς Διόνυσας, εἰς θεὸς ἐν πάντεσαι (Macrobius, Saturn., I, 18, 17; ps.-Justin, Cohort, ad Gent., 15; Julian the Apostate [Orat., IV, 136] cites it in this form: εἰς Ζεύς, εἰς Λάθης, εἰς Ἠλίας ἕστι Σάραπις. Cf. W. Kroll, in Rhein. Mus., 71 [1916], p. 315; E. Peterson, Εἰς θεός, diss., Gottinga 1920). In Zeus, Orphism fused and identified all the gods: «Orpheus non solum deos omnes in uno Iove collocat, sed etiam in quolibet deo saepe numina cuncta commemorat» (M. Ficino, Comm. in Platonis Phaedr., 10). In reality, the t. of Orphism went beyond the polytheistic tradition and led toward a unitary conception of the divine which, although unequivocally immanentist and pantheistic, could appear altogether monotheistic. The one to Zeus (in Eusebius, Praep. ev., III, 9; Stobaeus, Ecl., I, 23) and the ἱερός λόγος (in Clement of Alexandria, Protr., VII, 74, 4; ps.-Justin, Cohort., 15; Eusebius, op. cit., XIII, 12), which had a wide resonance down to our Renaissance, are indeed unmistakably pantheistic in character; Christian writers (cf. ps.-Justin, Monarch., 3; Theophilus, Ad Antolyc., III, 117 c), on the other hand, saw in them an explicit profession of monotheism: above all in the ἱερός λόγος, in which Orpheus, after repudiating the old polytheistic faith, was said to have declared the existence of one God (cf. especially V. 8: εἰς ἕστ., αὐτογενής, ἑνὸς ἔγγανα πάντα τένυκται). But t., besides representing in the more ancient Orphism a spiritual impulse, was also, in the later Orphism of the 1st–2nd centuries B.C., an expression of the syncretism of the age. The Orphic hymns in particular (of which see the recent selection edited by G. Faggin, Firenze 1949), although they seem to confirm the polytheistic tradition through the great number of gods to whom they are dedicated, in reality follow the theocrasic principle and bear witness to a fusion already accomplished. It will suffice to cite, by way of example, the complex and in certain respects mysterious identifications of Eros-Helios-Zeus-Aeon and of Dionysus-Adonis-Pan-Ap (cf. ed. cit., pp. 155 and 163). The so-called « litanies of Isis » (published by B. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, Oxyrh. Pap., XI, Londra, no. 1380), which date from the same period as the Orphic hymns, are also one of the most significant testimonies to t.: Isis is invoked successively under the names of Aphrodite, Hestia, Hera, Dictynna, Themis, Atargatis, Astarte, etc. « En adsum... (thus Isis speaks in Apuleius, Met., XI, 5) rerum naturam parens : ... summa numinum... prima coelitum, deorum dearumque facies uniformis : ... me primigenii Phryges nominant Pessinuntiam deum matrem, ... Cyprii Paphiam Venerem, Cretes... Dictynnam; Siculi... Proserpinam ».
T. could also be reached by another route: philosophical thought, possessing a unitary and organic cosmological conception, was naturally led to a naturalistic interpretation of myths and to a fusion of the divinities. Stoicism (v.): « Stoici autem dicunt non esse nisi deum unum et unam potestatem, quae pro ratione officiorum nostrorum variis nominibus appellatur : unde eundem Liberum eundem Apollinem appellant, item Lunam eandem Proserpinam dicunt » (Servius, Ad Georg., V, 1; cf. Macrobius, Saturn., I, 18). Stoic exegesis thus became the definitive philosophical justification of t., supplying Orphism and syncretism with their credentials and at the same time attempting to preserve the naturalistic creed of the declining pagan conception: it is therefore no surprise that the Orphic hymns reveal evident Stoic influences (cf. C. Petersen, Über den Ursprung der unter Orpheus Namee vorhandenes Hymnen, in Philologia, 27 [1868]), p. 385 ff.
It is therefore clear what the historical function of t. was: an expression of the spiritual impulse of a people and of a cultural climate, as well as of a speculative interest, it marks the effort of the ancient world to emerge from the entanglements of traditional polytheism without violently repudiating it; but it also denotes the more or less conscious need to recognize, under the sign of Zeus, a single homeland of mankind, one civitas humana.