Numenius

(Νουμήνιος), of Apameia in Syria, a Pythagoreo-Platonic philosopher, who was highly esteemed by Plotinus and his school, as well as by Origen. (Porphyr. Vit. Plot. 2, 17; Suid. s. vv. Ὠριγένης, Νουμήνιος. He and Cronius, a man of a kindred mind and a contemporary, who is often spoken of along with him (Porphyr. De Antr. Nynmph. p. 121 ed. Holsten.), probably belong to the age of the Antonines. He is mentioned not only by Porphyrius, but also by Clemens of Alexandria and Origen. Works

Statements and fragments of his apparently very numerous works have been preserved by Origen, Theodoret, and especially by Eusebius, and from them we may with tolerable accuracy learn the peculiar tendency of this new Platonico-Pythagorean philosophy, and its approximation to the doctrines of Plato. Numenius is almost invariably designated as a Pythagorean, but his object was to trace the doctrines of Plato up to Pythagoras, and at the same time to show that they were not at variance with the dogmas and mysteries of the Brahmins, Jews, Magi and Egyptians. (See the Fragm. of the 1st book Περὶ τἀγαθοῦ, ap. Euseb. Praep. Evang. 9.7.) Numenius called Plato " the Atticising Moses," probably on the supposition of some historical connexion between them. (Clem. Alex. Strom. 1.342; Euseb. Praep. Evang. 11.10. p. 527; Suid. s. v.)

In several of his works, therefore, he had based his remarks on passages from the books of Moses, and he had explained one passage about the life of our Saviour, though without mentioning him in a figurative sense. (Orig. ad v. Cels. iv. p. 198, &c. Spenc.; comp. i. p. 13; Porphyr. De Antr. Nymph. p. 111, &c.) He had also endeavoured to inquire into the hidden meaning of the Egyptian, perhaps also of Greek mythology. (See his explanation of Serapis apud Orig. Ibid. v. p. 258; Fr. ἐκ τοῦ περὶ τῶν παρὰ Πγάτωνι ἀπορρήτων, ap. Euseb. Pruaep. Ev. 13.5. )

His intention was to restore the philosophy of Plato, the genuine Pythagorean and mediator between Socrates and Pythagoras (neither of whom he prefers to the other) in its original purity, cleared from the Aristotelian and Zenonian or Stoic doctrines, and purified from the unsatisfactory and perverse explanations, which he said were found even in Speusippus and Xenocrates, and which, through the influence of Arcesilas and Carneades, i. e. in the second and third Academy, had led to a bottomless scepticism. (See especially Euseb. Praep. Ev. 14.5.) On the Apostacy of the Academy from Plato (Περὶ τῆς τῶν Ἀκαδημαϊκῶν πρὸς Πλάτωνα διαστάσεως)

His work on the apostacy of the Academy from Plato (Περὶ τῆς τῶν Ἀκαδημαϊκῶν πρὸς Πλάτωνα διαστάσεως), to judge from its rather numerous fragments (ap. Euseb. Praep. Ev. 14.5-9), contained a minute and wearisome account of the outward circumstances of those men, and was full of fabulous tales about their lives, without entering into the nature of their scepticism. On the Good Περὶ τἀγαθοῦ)

His books Περὶ τἀγαθοῦ seem to have been of a better kind; in them he had minutely explained, mainly in opposition to the Stoics, that existence could neither be found in the elements because they were in a perpetual state of change and transition, nor in matter because it is vague, inconstant, lifeless, and in itself not an object of our knowledge; and that, on the contrary, existence, in order to resist the annihilation and decay of matter, must itself rather be incorporeal and removed from all mutability (Frag. apud Euseb. Praep. Ev. 15.17), in eternal presence, without being subject to the variation of time, simple and imperturbable in its nature by its own will as well as by influence from without. (Ib. 11.10.) True existence, according to him, is identical with the first god existing in and by himself, that is, with good (τὸ ἀγαθόν), and is defined as spirit (νοῦς, ib.. 11.18, 9.22). But as the first (absolute) god existing in himself and being undisturbed in his motion, could not be creative (δημιουργικός), he thought that we must assume a second god, who keeps matter together, directs his energy to it and to intelligible essences, and imparts his spirit to all creatures; his mind is directed to the first god, in whom he beholds the ideas according to which he arranges the world harmoniously, being seized with a desire to create the world. The first god communicates his ideas to the second, without losing them himself, just as we communicate knowledge to one another, without depriving ourselves of it. (Ibid. 11.18.) In regard to the relation existing between the third and second god, and to the manner in which they also are to be conceived as one (probably in opposition to the vague duration of matter), no information can be derived from the fragments which have come down to us. [Ch. A. B.]

(Νουμήνιος).

1. A sceptical philosopher, and a pupil of Pyrrhon, must be distinguished from Numenius of Apameia. (D. L. 9.68, 102, 114.)

2. A rhetorician, who lived in the reign of Hadrian, to whom he addressed a consolatory discourse (παραμυθητικόν) on the death of Antinous. He also wrote Περὶ τῶν τῆς λέξεως σχημάτων, Χρειῶν συναγωγή, and arguments (ὑποθέσεις to the works of Thucydides and Demosthenes. (Suid. s. v. and Eudoxia.) He was the father of the rhetorician Alexander, who is hence frequently called Alexander Numenius. [See Vol. I. p. 123a.]

(Νουμήνιος), a medical writer, quoted by Celsus (5.18.35, 21.4, pp. 88, 92) and Aetius (4.1.20, p. 621, in which passage for Numius we should read Numenius). He is, perhaps, the native of Heracleia, who was a pupil of Dieuches, and lived probably in the fourth or third century B. C. (Athen. 1.5.) He wrote a poem on fishing, Ἁγιευτικά, which is frequently quoted by Athenaeus. A person of the same name, who wrote on venomous animals, Θηριακά, is quoted by the Scholiast on Nicander. (Fabric. Bibl. Gr. vol. ii. p. 627, ed. vet.) [W.A.G]

(Νουμήνιος). (1) A Greek philosopher of the Platonic School, who is supposed to have flourished about the end of the second century of our era. He was born at Apamea, in Syria, and was regarded as an oracle of wisdom. He was the author of a treatise, entitled Περὶ τῆς τῶν Ἀκαδημαϊκῶν περὶ Πλάτωνα διαστάσεως (“Of the Disagreement among the Academic Philosophers respecting Plato”). Eusebius has preserved some fragments of this work.

(2) A Greek rhetorician, who flourished in the time of the Antonines. He wrote two works, which have been printed in the Aldine Rhetorical Collection.

(3) An epigrammatic poet; a native of Tarsus.