THEOCRASIA. — From the Greek θεός, god, and κράσις, fusion, in its primary sense the term (used by Iamblichus, *Vita Pythagorae*, 33, 240, and by Damascius, *Vita Isidori*, 5, in Photius, *Bibl.*, cccxlii 526) denotes that intimate union (ἔνωσις παντελής) 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 nonetheless was, in the ancient classical world, one of the first theorists of mystical experience (*Enn.*, V, 8, 11; VI, 9, 9-10).
The term theocrasia is also used to indicate the fusion of different deities into a single divine figure, and testifies to a fusion already accomplished. It will suffice to cite, by way of example, the complex and in some respects mysterious identifications of Eros-Helios-Zeus-Eon-Phanes-Protogonos-Erichthonius-Dionysus and of Dionysus-Adonis-Pan-Apollo-Proteus-Helios-Corybant (*cf.* ed. cit., pp. 155 and 163). Even the so-called “liturgies of Isis” (published by B. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, *Oxyrh. Pap.*, XI, London, no. 1380), which date from the same period as the Orphic hymns, are one of the most notable testimonies to theocrasia: Isis is invoked successively by the names of Aphrodite, Hestia, Hera, Dictynna, Themis, Atargatis, Astarte, etc. “En adsum... (thus speaks Isis in Apuleius, *Met.*, XI, 5)”; “Rum naturam parens: ‘... summa numinum... prima coelitum, deorum dearumque facies uniformis’: ‘... me primigenii Phryges nominant Pessinuntiam deum matrem, ... Cyprii Paphiam Venerem, Cretes... Dictynnam; Siculi... Proserpinam’.”
Theocrasia could also be reached by another path: philosophical thought, in possession of a unitary and organic cosmological conception, was naturally led to a naturalistic interpretation of myths and to a fusion of deities. This is the position of Stoicism (*v.*): “Stoici autem dicunt non esse nisi deum unum et unam potestatem, quae pro ratione officiorum nostrorum variis nominibus appellatur: unde eundem Liberum eumdem Apollinem appellant, item Lunam eandem Proserpinam dicunt” (Servius, *Ad Georg.*, V, 1; *cf.* Macrobius, *Saturn.*, I, 18). The Stoic approach thus becomes the definitive philosophical justification of theocrasia, providing credentials for Orphism and syncretism while attempting to preserve the naturalistic creed of the declining pagan conception. It is therefore no wonder that the Orphic hymns show evident Stoic influences (*cf.* C. Petersen, *Über den Ursprung der unter Orpheus Namen vorhandenen Hymnen*, in *Philologus*, 27 [1868], pp. 385 ff.).
It is clear, then, what the Stoic function of theocrasia was: an expression of a spiritual need of a people and a cultural climate, as well as of a speculative interest, it marks the ancient world’s effort to escape the tangles of traditional polytheism without violently renouncing it; yet it also denotes the more or less conscious need to recognize, under the sign of Zeus, a single homeland for mankind, one *civitas humana*.