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| The Goths, under the Reign of Valens, embrace Christianity.
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Chapter XXXIII.—The
Goths, under the Reign of Valens, embrace Christianity.
The barbarians, dwelling beyond
the Danube, called the Goths,669
| 669The fullest and best ancient authors on the origin
and history of the Goths are Procopius of Cæsarea
(Historia, IV.–VIII., de Bello Italico adversus Gothos
gesto), Jornandes (de Getarum [Gothorum] origine
et rebus gestis), and Isidore Hispalensis (Historia
Gothorum). On the conversion of the Goths to Christianity, see
Neander, Hist. of the Christ. Ch. Vol. II. p. 125–129, and
Schaff, Hist. of the Christ. Ch. Vol. III. p. 640, 641.
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having engaged in a civil war among themselves, were divided into two
parties, one of which was headed by Fritigernes, the other by
Athanaric. When the latter had obtained an evident advantage over his
rival, Fritigernes had recourse to the Romans, and implored their
assistance against his adversary. This was reported to the Emperor
Valens, and he ordered the troops which were garrisoned in Thrace to
assist those barbarians who had appealed to him against their more
powerful countrymen; and by means of this subsidy they won a complete
victory over Athanaric beyond the Danube, totally routing the enemy.
This became the occasion for the conversion of many of the barbarians
to the Christian religion:670
| 670For a slightly differing account of the conversion
of the Goths and the labors of Ulfilas, see Philostorgius, II. 5.
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for Fritigernes, to express his sense of the obligation the emperor had
conferred upon him, embraced the religion of his benefactor, and urged
those who were under his authority to do the same. Therefore it is that
so many of the Goths are even to the present time infected with the
errors of Arianism, they having on the occasion preferred to become
adherents to that heresy on the emperor’s account. Ulfilas, their
bishop at that time, invented the Gothic letters,671
| 671By selecting from the Greek and Latin alphabets such
characters as appeared to him to best suit the sounds of his native
language. For a similar invention of an alphabet as a consequence of
the introduction of Christianity, compare the Slavonic invented by
Cyril and Methodius and a great number of instances in the history of
modern missions.
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and translating the Sacred Scriptures into their own language,
undertook to instruct these barbarians in the Divine oracles. And as
Ulfilas did not restrict his labors to the subjects of Fritigernes, but
extended them to those who acknowledged the sway of Athanaric also,
Athanaric regarding this as a violation of the privileges of the
religion of his ancestors, subjected those who professed Christianity
to severe punishments; so that many of the Arian Goths of that period
became martyrs. Arius indeed, failing in his attempt to refute the
opinion of Sabellius the Libyan, fell from the true faith, and asserted
the Son of God to be ‘a new God’:672
but the barbarians embracing Christianity with greater simplicity of
mind despised the present life for the faith of Christ. With these
remarks we shall close our notice of the Christianized Goths.
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