:
Wulfila is also a spider genus (
Anyphaenidae)
Ulfilas, or
Gothic Wulfila (also
Ulphilas.
Orphila) (ca. 310 – 383;
),
bishop,
missionary, and Bible
translator, was a
Goth or half-Goth who had spent time inside the
Roman Empire at the peak of the
Arian controversy. Ulfilas was ordained a bishop by
Eusebius of Nicomedia and returned to his people to work as a missionary. In 348, to escape religious persecution by a Gothic chief, probably
Athanaric he obtained permission from
Constantius II to migrate with his flock of converts to
Moesia and settle near
Nicopolis ad Istrum, in what is now northern
Bulgaria. There, Ulfilas translated the
Bible from
Greek into the
Gothic language. For this he devised the
Gothic alphabet. Fragments of his translation have survived, including the
Codex Argenteus, in the University Library of
Uppsala in
Sweden. A parchment page of this Bible was found in 1971 in the
Speyer Cathedral.
His parents were of non-Gothic Anatolian origin but had been enslaved by Goths on horseback. Ulfilas
converted many among the
Goths, preaching an
Arian Christianity, which, when they reached the western Mediterranean, set them apart from their Orthodox neighbors and subjects.
Historical sources
There are five primary sources for the study of Ulfilas's life. Two are by Arian authors, three by
Catholics.
- * Historia Ecclesiastica by Sozomen
There are significant differences between the stories presented by the two camps. The Arian sources depict Ulfilas as an Arian from childhood. He was then consecrated as a bishop around 340 and evangelized among the Goths for 7 years during the 340s. He then moved to
Moesia (within the Roman Empire) under the protection of the Arian Emperor
Constantius II. He later attended several councils and engaged in continuing religious debate. They date his death in 383.
The accounts by the Catholic historians differ in several details, but the general picture is similar. According to them, Ulfilas was an orthodox Christian for most of his early life. He was only converted to Arianism somewhere around 360, and then only because of political pressure from the pro-Arian ecclesiastical and governmental powers. The sources differ in how much they credit Ulfilas with the conversion of the Goths. Socrates Scholasticus gives Ulfilas a minor role, and instead attributes the mass conversion to the Gothic chieftain
Fritigern, who adopted Arianism out of gratitude for the military support of the Arian emperor. Sozomen attributes the mass conversion primarily to Ulfilas, though he also acknowledges the role of Fritigern.
For several reasons, modern scholars depend more heavily on the Arian accounts than the Catholic accounts. Auxentius was clearly the closest to Ulfilas, and so presumably had access to more reliable information. The Catholic accounts differ too widely among themselves to present a unified case. Debate continues as to the best reconstruction of Ulfilas's life.
The Creed of Ulfilas
The creed of Ulfilas, which concludes a letter praising him written by his foster-son and pupil the Scythian
Auxentius of Durostorum (modern
Silistra) on the Danube, who became
bishop of Milan, distinguishes God the Father ("unbegotten") from God the Son ("only-begotten"), who was begotten before time and who created the world, and the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son:
I, Ulfila, bishop and confessor, have always so believed, and in this, the one true faith, I make the journey to my Lord; I believe in one God the Father, the only unbegotten and invisible, and in his only-begotten son, our Lord and God, the designer and maker of all creation, having none other like him (so that one alone among all beings is God the Father, who is also the God of our God); and in one Holy Spirit, the illuminating and sanctifying power, as Christ said after his resurrection to his apostles: "And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24:49) and again "But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you" (Acts 1:8); being neither God (the Father) nor our God (Christ), but the minister of Christ ... subject and obedient in all things to the Son; and the Son, subject and obedient in all things to God who is his Father ... (whom) he ordained in the Holy Spirit through his Christ.
Maximinus, a 5th century Arian theologian, copied Auxentius' letter, among other works, into the margins of one copy of
Ambrose's
De Fide; there are some gaps in the surviving text.
Honours
Wulfila Glacier on
Greenwich Island in the
South Shetland Islands,
Antarctica is named for Bishop Ulfilas.
See also
Notes and references
