ULFILAS (c. 311-383), the apostle of Christianity to the Gothic race, and, through his translation of the Scriptures into Gothic, the father of Teutonic literature, was born among the Goths at the trans-Danubian provinces about the year 311.
The Arian historian Philostorgius (Hist. eccl. ii. 5) says that his grandparents were Christian captives from Sadagolthina in Cap padocia, who had been carried off to the lands beyond the Danube in the Gothic raid of 264, and became so naturalized that the boy received a Gothic name, Wulfila (Little Wolf). An authoritative record of the outlines of his life was only discovered early in the 19th century in a writing of Auxentius of Milan, his pupil and companion. At an early age Ulfilas was sent, either as an envoy or as a hostage for his tribe, to Constantinople, probably on the occasion of the treaty arranged in 332. Ulfilas may therefore have been a convert to Christianity when he reached Constantinople. But here probably he came into contact with the Arian doctrines which gave the form to his later teaching. For some time before he worked as a lector (reader of the Scriptures). From this work he was called to return as missionary bishop to his own country, being ordained by Eusebius of Nicomedia and "the bishops who were with him," probably at Antioch, in 341.
He was now thirty years of age, and his work as "bishop among the Goths" covered the remaining forty years of his life. For seven of these years he wrought among the Visigoths beyond the Danube, till the success which attended his labours drew down the persecution of the still pagan chief of the tribe. To save his flock from extinction or dispersion, Ulfilas decided to withdraw both himself and his people. With the consent of the emperor Constantius he led them across the Danube, "a great body of the faithful," and settled in Moesia at the foot of the range of Hae mus and near the site of the modern Trnovo (349)• The life of Ulfilas during the following thirty-three years is marked by only one recorded incident (Sozomen iv. 24), his visit to Constantinople in January 36o, to attend the council con vened by the Arian or Homoean party. The part played by Ulfilas in these troublous times cannot be ascertained with certainty. It may have been he who, as a "presbyter christiani ritus," con ducted negotiations with Valens before the battle of Adrianople (378) ; but that he headed a previous embassy asking for leave for the Visigoths to settle on Roman soil, and that he then, for political motives, professed himself a convert to the Arian creed, favoured by the emperor, and drew with him the whole body of his countrymen—these and other similar stories of the orthodox church historians appear to be without foundation. The death of Valens, followed by the succession and the early conversion to Catholicism of Theodosius, dealt a fatal blow to the Arian party within the empire. In 383 he was sent to Constantinople by
the emperor. A split seems to have taken place among the Arians at Constantinople. Ulfilas was summoned to meet the innovators, and to induce them to surrender the opinion which caused the dispute. No sooner had he reached Constantinople than he fell sick, "having pondered much about the council," and before he had put his hand to the task which had brought him he died, probably in January 383.
The Arianism of Ulfilas was a fact of pregnant consequence for his people, and indirectly for the empire. It had been his lifelong faith, as we learn from the opening words of his own confession— "Ego Ulfilas semper sic credidi." If, as seems probable from the circumstances of his ordination, he was a semi-Arian and a fol lower of Eusebius in 341, at a later period of his life he de parted from this position, and vigorously opposed the teaching of his former leader. He appears to have joined the Homoean party, which took shape and acquired influence before the council of Constantinople in 36o, where he adhered with the rest of the council to the creed of Ariminum, with the addendum that in future the terms and oi)orta should be excluded from Christological definitions. Thus we learn from Auxentius that he condemned Homoousians and Homoiousians alike, adopting for himself the Homoean formula, "filium similem esse patri suo." His version of the Scriptures is his greatest monument. By it he raised a barbarian tongue to the dignity of a literary language; and the skill, knowledge and adaptive ability it displays make it the crowning testimony of his powers as well as of his devotion to his work. For the linguistic value of the Gothic version of the Scriptures by Ulfilas see GOTHS : Gothic language. It is preserved, though only in a fragmentary form, in the famous Codex Argen teus at Uppsala. This ms., discovered at the monastery of Werden, near Cologne, was deposited at Prague, carried off by the Swedes in 1648 and presented to Queen Christina. From Stockholm it passed by some means into the hands of Isaac Vossius, and a transcript was made and published by Franciscus Junius in 1655. The ms. was bought by the Count de la Gardie and presented to the university of Uppsala Its uncial letters are formed in silver on a surface of purple vellum.