ABSTRACT
Ulfila, or Wulfila, the apostle of the Goths, is one of the more intriguing unknown quantities of the Arian controversy, the fourth-century all-in ecclesiastical fight for an acceptable framework for Trinitarian theology. If the dials are set low, he can disappear completely from the narratives both of the rise of the Goths and of the triumph of homoousian Christology. But if people set the dials to the maximum, he can be argued to be the man ultimately responsible both for the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and for the establishment of Nicene Christianity as the normative form of Christianity up to the present day. This chapter argues against the consensus which is taking ever firmer hold with regard to Ulfila's theological standpoint, a consensus which threatens to cloud understanding both of Ulfila himself and of the religion of the Germanic peoples of the fifth and sixth centuries. This consensus is that his religion is best described as homoian.
