NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Monotheism. The Primitive Religion of Rome. By Rev. Henry Formby. 1 vol. 8vo. London: Williams & Norgate; New York: Scribner, Welford & Co. 1877.
This is a very interesting and, in some respects, a learned work; but we are fain to confess that we have been disappointed in it. If the author, instead of attempting to show that the worship of the one true God was the early religion of Rome, had contented himself with proving it to have been professed by the primitive Gentile nations in general, we should agree with him, and thank him for unfolding in our English language the incontrovertible truth that polytheism and idolatry are but corruptions of great primeval traditions collected, preserved, and handed down by Noe, and that heathen mythology can be made to bear witness to the original idea of the unity and spirituality of God. This view of the religious errors of the ancients has been held up by several eminent writers, and particularly by two who deserve to be rescued from an unjust oblivion—by Monsignor Bianchini (1697) in La Storia Universale provata con Monumenti e figurata con Simboli Antichi; and by Abbé Bergier (1773) in his Origine des Dieux du Paganisme. While we do not accuse our reverend author of a want of modesty precisely in stating his prime opinion about the monotheism of the second king of Rome, we do think that he writes a little too dogmatically and as though he had discovered some historical treasure-trove wherewith to enrich his arguments; whereas no new documents or monuments whatever have been brought to light to throw a different or brighter ray upon the character of Numa Pompilius, in connection with whom, moreover, he seems to us to confound idolatry and polytheism. We confidently believe that the Cœleste Numen of Numa, on which so great stress is laid, like the Deus Optimus Maximus of Tully, or the Divûm pater atque hominum rex of Virgil, was nothing more than another form of man’s continual, almost involuntary, protest against the falling away of the human race from the worship of the Creator, but practically did not betoken more than a recognition of one among many greater than his fellow-gods. While Numa forbade the worship of idols in Rome, and consequently professed a less corrupt error than did many contemporary rulers, he never asserted the unity or, we prefer to say, the oneness of God. He was a prolific polytheist, multiplying divinities and introducing new superstitions among his people. Father Formby has brought up nothing in his favor unknown to Arnobius, Orosius, St. Augustine, and Tertullian. This last writer, although he absolves Numa from the crime of idolatry, distinctly charges upon him a many-parted god: “Nam a Numa concepta est curiositas superstitiosa” (Apol. xxv.)
Our author’s present work is an amplification of a smaller one published in pamphlet form two years ago, in which he shows the “city of ancient Rome” to have been “the divinely-sent pioneer of the way for the Catholic Church.” On this subject we cannot too closely agree with him, or sufficiently thank him for turning towards our students and illustrating for them a side of Roman history which is so important. Our own studies have always pointed in the same direction, and we cannot better conclude this notice of Father Formby’s work and show our sympathy with him than by a brief extract from our commonplace book, made up many years ago in Rome itself:
“The celebrated Gallo-Roman poet and statesman, Rutilius Numatianus, was much attached to the false ancient divinities of Rome and no small help to the political party of Symmachus, which so stubbornly fought St. Ambrose and the Christians. The following lines from his Itinerarium (i. 62 et seq.) are truly beautiful and express a grand idea, but one that is still grander in another sense than his; for if a heathen understood it to be a blessing in disguise upon the conquered peoples of the earth to be brought under the domination of Rome on account of the prosperity and civilization that accompanied her rule, how shall not a Christian admire the action of divine Providence, preparing the world for the New Law, and applaud those triumphs that brought so many countries through the Roman Empire into the Church of Christ. Of Christian less than of pagan Rome we shall interpret the poet’s sentiment:
“‘Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam;
Profuit invitis, te dominante, capi;
Dumque offers victis patrii consortia juris