Comte de Gabalis: Commentary Continued: VV. Roman Worship of a Supreme Deity Without Image or Statue
Comte de Gabalis [1913]
VV"Numa forbade the Romans to represent the Deity in the form either of man or beast. Nor was there among them formerly any image or statue of the Divine Being; during the first hundred and seventy years they built temples, indeed, and other sacred domes, but placed in them no figure of any kind: persuaded that it is impious to represent things divine by what is perishable, and that we can have no conception of God but by the understanding." PLUTARCH, LIFE OF NUMA.