Ulfilas
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- Wulfila is also a spider genus (Anyphaenidae)
Ulfilas or Wulfila (perhaps meaning "little wolf") (c. 310 – 388), bishop, missionary, and translator, was a Goth or half-Goth who had spent time inside the Roman Empire at a time when Arianism was dominant. Ulfilas was ordained a bishop by Eusebius of Nicomedia and returned to his people to work as a missionary. To escape religious persecution by Gothic chief Athanaric, he obtained permission from Constantius II to immigrate with his flock of converts to Moesia and settle at Nicopolis ad Istrum, modern northern Bulgaria. There, Ulfilas translated the Bible from Greek into the Gothic language. For this he established a Gothic alphabet writing system. Fragments have survived and are known as the Codex Argenteus, in the University Library of Uppsala.
Ulfilas converted many among the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, preaching an Arian Christianity, which when they reached the western Mediterranean, set them apart from their overwhelmingly Catholic neighbors and subjects.
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[edit] Historical sources
There are five primary sources for the study of Ulfilas's life. Two are by Arian authors, three by Catholics.[1]
- Arian sources
- Life of Ulphilas in the Letter of Auxentius
- Remaining fragments of Historia Ecclesiastica by Philostorgius
- Catholic sources
- Historia Ecclesiastica by Sozomen
- Historia Ecclesiastica by Socrates Scholasticus
- Historia Ecclesiastica by Theodoret
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.
[edit] The Creed of Ulfilas
The creed of Ulfilas, as appended to 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, is a clear statement of central Arian tenets, which separated God the father ("unbegotten") from the second, lesser God, the Christ ("only-begotten"), who was born before time and who created the world, and the Holy Spirit, created by the Father through the Son:
I believe that there is only one God the Father, alone unbegotten and invisible, and in His only-begotten Son, our Lord and God, creator and maker of all things, not having any like unto Him. Therefore there is one God of all, who is also God of our God, And I believe in one Holy Spirit, an enlightening and sanctifying power. As Christ says after the resurrection to his Apostles: "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: "And ye shall receive power coming upon you by the Holy Spirit." (Acts 1.8) Neither God nor Lord, but the faithful minister of Christ; not equal, but subject and obedient in all things to the Son. And I believe the Son to be subject and obedient in all things to God the Father.
The letter of Auxentius, emphatically denying that Ulfilas was a heretic, was preserved in a copy of Ambrose’s De Fide.
[edit] Honours
Wulfila Glacier on Greenwich Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named for Bishop Ulfilas.
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ For an overview and evaluation of the historical sources, see Hagith Sivan, "Ulfila’s Own Conversion," Harvard Theological Review 89 (October 1996): pp. 373–86.
