A
divine spirit of some sort. It comes from the Latin word
numen,
numinis,n. which has the same definition.
The early
Romans practiced
numinism, which is basically just a form of
animism in which every object, as well as every
abstraction, has a
numen. There were
numina of the door, the hinge, of
cattle-breeding, of the planted seed, the growing seed,
et cetera. There was
even Limus, the
numen of the
sidelong glance.
It is important to point out that
numina were not
gods, but merely
divine spirits. They had no
personality or
mythology, but were merely
presences that could harm those who offended them. The
early
Romans would appease these
numina by making
sacrifices to them
to bring good luck or to offset some offense they were about to perform.
However, the
sacrifice had to be of high quality; if the innards of a
pig
were deformed, for example, it would be a sign that the
numen thought it
was an unworthy
sacrifice.
Due to the awfully
anal and
meticulous nature of the
numina,
the
rituals had to be performed exactly right or they would consider them
null and void. Since simply an unexpected sound could ruin a
ritual,
worshippers enjoined in
silence with the words
favete linguis. The
celebrants would cover their heads with a fold of the
toga to ensure
any exterior noises would be unnoticed. The
ritual methods were so precise
that prayers, hymns, and practices that had been trasmitted orally from
generation to generation, mangled by centuries of
cultural change, were
still practiced
to the letter, even though they were
incomprehensible to
most
Romans. Any alteration, it was said, might offend the
numina.
After the development of more sophisticated deities, in particular
the Dei Consentes, numina were still considered an important part
of state and private religion.