noun
definition
A divinity, especially a local or presiding god.
definition
An influence or phenomenon at once mystical and transcendant.
Examples of numen in a Sentence
Thus we hear of temples dedicated to Juventas=Hebe (191 B.C.), Diana=Artemis (179 B.C.), Mars=Ares (138 B.C.), and find even such unexpected identifications as that of the Bona Dea - a cult title of the ancient Fauna, the female counterpart of the countryside numen Faunus - with a Greek goddess of women, Damia.
The recognized modes of communicating the afflatus, power or numen to a person or thing to be consecrated are many, and only a few can be enumerated.
The settler who went into the woods might know neither the name nor the sex of the indwelling numen; " si deus si dea," " sive mas sive femina," ran the old formulae.
To the primitive nomadic Semite the presence of the divinity was indicated by springs, shady trees, remarkable rocks and other landmarks; and from this earliest conception grew the theory that a numen might be induced to take up an abode in an artificial heap of stones, or a pillar set upright for the purpose.
But the symbol carried with it the numen of the goddess symbolized, and there can be little doubt that Asherah came to be regarded as Yahweh's consort.
Perhaps they merely rejected the idea that the numen or divine grace can be confined by priestly consecration in water and by mere washing be imparted to persons baptized.
The New English Dictionary points out that whereas the old Teutonic type of the word is neuter, corresponding to the Latin numen, in the Christian applications it becomes masculine, and that even where the earlier neuter form is still kept, as in Gothic and Old Norwegian, the construction is masculine.
Jabneh (name of a city), Jabin, Jamlek, Jiptah (Jephthah), &c. Most of these really are verbs, the suppressed or implicit subject being 'el, " numen, god," or the name of a god; cf.
Place, again, as we have seen, was an essential element even in the conception of the numen, and is therefore all-important in ritual.
The loose aggregation of agricultural households gives place t o the organized community with new needs and new g y ideals, and at the same time in religious thought the old vague notion of the numen is almost universally superseded by the more definite conception of the dens - not even now quite anthropomorphic, but with a much more clearly realized personality.