ABSTRACT
Bishop among the Goths and Bible translator. Descended from a Christian family of Cappadocia that had been captured by the Goths, Ulfilas (or Wulfila) was fluent in Greek and Latin as well as in Gothic. He was consecrated bishop (ca. 336 or 341) by Eusebius of Nicomedia, an adherent of Arianism who was then occupying the see of Constantinople. (Ulfilas was not the first bishop of the Goths, for a bishop Theodore of the Goths took part in the Council of Nicaea in 325.) After working in the area north of the lower Danube for several years, to escape persecution from the pagan Goths he settled his followers in Moesia Secunda south of the lower Danube within the Roman empire, in response to the invitation of the emperor Constantius II. The creed he preached was Arian. Thus, Arianism spread from the Goths to the other Germanic tribes and then reentered the empire when those peoples later invaded the west and established their kingdoms there. He died at Constantinople, where he was attending a synod.
