--Sidonius Apollinaris,--has one quotation from Tacitus and three
references to him. The quotation, which occurs in the fourteenth
chapter of the fourth book of his Epistles, is from the last
section of the History, (that part of the speech of Civilis where
the seditious Batavian touches on the friendship which existed
between himself and Vespasian); and his three references are,
first, to the "ancient mode of narrative," combined with the
greatest "literary excellence" (iv. 22); secondly, to "genius for
eloquence" (Carm. xxiii. 153-4); and thirdly, to "pomp of manner"
(Carm. ii. 192); the not inelegant Christian writer enumerating
qualities that specially commend themselves in the History. When
Spartian praises Tacitus for "good faith," the eulogy is more
appropriate to the writer of the History than the Annals, howbeit
that so many moderns, including the famous philologist and
polygrapher, Justus Lipsius; the Pomeranian scholar of the last
century, Meierotto; Boetticher and Prutz all question the veracity
of Tacitus; while for what he says of the Jews Tertullian
vituperates him in language so outrageous as to be altogether
unbecoming the capacious mind of the Patristic worthy, who calls
him, "the most loquacious of liars,"--"mendaciorum loquacissimus;"
--in which strain of calumny he was, from the same cause of religious
fervour, followed centuries after,--in the seventeenth,--by two
of the most renowned preachers and orators of their day, the famous
Jesuit, Famianus Strada, and his less known contemporary, but most
able Chamberlain of Urban VIII., Augustino Mascardi,--as if all
these pious Christians found it quite impossible to pardon a heathen,
blinded by the prejudices of paganism, for believing what he did
of the Hebrews; and for recording which belief he ought to receive
immediate forgiveness, seeing that Justin, Plutarch, Strabo and
Democritus said as bad, if not worse things of that ancient people