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Updated: June 27, 2025
Then, after the glorious martyrdom of many servants and handmaids of Christ, as the persecution still raged vehemently, after seven years of his episcopate were expired, the blessed Ulfilas being driven from "Varbaricum" with a great multitude of confessors, was honourably received on the soil of Roumania by the Emperor Constantius of blessed memory.
But he could give them little help, for though the Goths of Moesia were faithful to the Empire, Theodosius preferred the stalwart heathens of Athanaric to their Arian countrymen. Ulfilas died at Constantinople like Athanaric, but there was no royal funeral for the first apostle of the Northern nations.
But the mob was still Arian, and their stormy demonstrations when the cathedral of the Twelve Apostles was given up to Gregory of Nazianzus were enough to make Theodosius waver. Arian influence was still strong at court, and Arian bishops came flocking to Constantinople. Low as they had fallen, they could still count among them the great name of Ulfilas.
As to the former, the "Codex of Ulfilas," in the library, which I had long desired to see, especially interested me; and visits to the houses of the various "nations" showed me that out of the social needs of Swedish students in the middle ages had been developed something closely akin to the fraternity houses which similar needs have developed in our time at American universities.
Varying as it does from age to age in historic value, it remains the first vernacular history of any Teutonic people, and, save for the Gothic translations of Ulfilas, the earliest and most venerable monument of Teutonic prose. But all this literary activity was only a part of that general upbuilding of Wessex by which Alfred was preparing for a fresh contest with the stranger.
When, therefore, the last overtures of Theodosius fell through in 383, the heresy was quite unable to bear the strain of steady persecution. But if Arianism soon ceased to be a power inside the Empire, it remained the faith of the barbarian invaders. The work of Ulfilas was not in vain. Not the Goths only, but all the earlier Teutonic converts were Arians.
Ulfilas, in his conversion of those barbarians, had made them the supporters of Arianism, not because they understood the subtile distinctions which theologians had made, but because it was the accepted and fashionable faith of Constantinople.
Their land must have been tilled principally by slaves, usually captives taken in war: but the noble mystery of the forge, where arms and ornaments were made, was an honourable craft for men of rank; and their ladies, as in the middle age, prided themselves on their skill with the needle and the loom. Their language has been happily preserved to us in Ulfilas' Translation of the Scriptures.
While the Goths starved he argued, apostasy was the absolute condition of his help, till Ulfilas, in a weak moment, gave his word that the Goths should become Arians, if Valens would give them lands on the South bank of the Danube. Then they would be the Emperor's men, and guard the marches against all foes.
They had never learned from the Goths of Ulfilas anything about Christianity. One day in the slave market at Rome three fair-haired boys were offered for sale. Gregory, a noble Roman, who had become a monk and was the abbot of his monastery, happened to be passing and asked who they were. He was told they were Angles.
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