Numen (plural numina) is a Latin term for "divinity", "divine presence", or "divine will". The Latin authors defined it as follows: Cicero writes of a "divine mind" (divina mens), a god "whose numen everything obeys", and a "divine power" (vis divina) "which pervades the lives of men". It causes the motions and cries of birds during augury. In Virgil's recounting of the blinding of the one-eyed giant, Polyphemus, from the Odyssey, in his Aeneid, he has Odysseus and his men first "ask for the assistance of the great numina" (magna precati numina). Reviewing public opinion of Augustus on the day of his funeral, the historian Tacitus reports that some thought "no honor was left to the gods" when he "established the cult of himself" (se ... coli vellet) "with temples and the effigies of numina" (effigie numinum). Pliny the Younger in a letter to Paternus raves about the "power", the "dignity", and "the majesty"; in short, the "numen of history". Lucretius uses the expression numen mentis, or "bidding of the mind", where "bidding" is numen, not, however, the divine numen, unless the mind is to be considered divine, but as simply human will. Since the early 20th century, numen has sometimes been compared with mana and treated as a remnant of a pre-animistic phase; that is, a belief system inherited from an earlier time. However, these ideas are now largely rejected within the scholarly literature. Numen is also used by sociologists to refer to the idea of magical power residing in an object, particularly when writing about ideas in the Western tradition.
Etymology and origin The 1st-century BCE Roman author Varro records that the term numen derives from nutus ("nod, command, will"), and, similarly, the 2nd-century grammarian Festus defines numen as the "nutus dei ac potestas" ("the command and power of a god"). Michiel de Vaan, an Indo-Europeanist scholar, derives the term from the verb -nuō ("to nod") also underlying nutus. If this proposal is accepted, the term is connected with the Proto-Indo-European root *new- ("to nod"), whence also Ancient Greek νεύω ("neúō," "to nod"). On the basis of its etymology, the classical scholar H. J. Rose provides the following definition of numen:
The literal meaning is simply "a nod", or more accurately, for it is a passive formation, "that which is produced by nodding", just as flamen is "that which is produced by blowing", i.e., a gust of wind. It came to mean "the product or expression of power" — not, be it noted, power itself. Thus, numen ("divinity") is not personified (although it can be a personal attribute) and should be distinguished from deus ("god"). According to the classicist Kurt Latte, the term numen is first attested in the works of Accius and Gaius Lucilius, which date to the second half of the 2nd-century BCE. It is, however, unattested in earlier writings, such as the works of Plautus, Ennius, or Cato the Elder, and it is also absent from ancient religious texts. On this basis, Latte proposed that—due to the influence of Stoic philosophy—the term may have emerged as a translation of Ancient Greek δύναμις ("dúnamis"). However, the classicist Tamás Nótári argues that the lack of proper attestation in the works of Ennius and Cato is perhaps attributable to the incomplete state of their surviving writings and it also the comedic plays of Plautus were inherently incongruent with esoteric religious concepts. Moreover, as noted by Latte himself, it is impossible to explains why the specific word numen would be generated to translate the Greek term. The historian Rebecca Denova has proposed that the concept of the numen parallels concepts known from Etruscan culture, where the divine was often envisioned as a vague and amorphous force. According to the Etruscologist Lammert Bouke van der Meer, the term numen is the semantic equivalent of the Etruscan word flere, which is also attributed to gods, such as in the phrase flere nethunsl ("flere of Nethuns"). However, the Etruscan conceptualization of their deities as abstract forces does not necessarily align with the archaic Roman understanding of numen, which itself most likely never denoted any animistic entities. Moreover, the exact meaning of Etruscan flere is itself not undisputed—there is also evidence that it is actually better equated with Latin fons ("spring, fountain").
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
