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Chapter
XXXIII.—How the Goths became tainted
by the Arian error.
To those ignorant of the circumstances it may be worth while to
explain how the Goths got the Arian plague. After they had crossed the
Danube, and made peace with Valens, the infamous Eudoxius, who was on
the spot, suggested to the emperor to persuade the Goths to accept
communion with him. They had indeed long since received the rays of
divine knowledge and had been nurtured in the apostolic doctrines,
“but now,” said Eudoxius, “community of opinion will
make the peace all the firmer.” Valens approved of this counsel
and proposed to the Gothic chieftains an agreement in doctrine, but
they replied that they would not consent to forsake the teaching of
their fathers. At the period in question their Bishop Ulphilas was
implicitly obeyed by them and they received his words as laws which
none might break. Partly by the fascination of his eloquence and partly
by the bribes with which he baited his proposals Eudoxius succeeded in
inducing him to persuade the barbarians to embrace communion with the
emperor, so Ulphilas won them over on the plea that the quarrel between
the different parties was really one of personal rivalry and involved
no difference in doctrine. The result is that up to this day the Goths
assert that the Father is greater than the Son, but they refuse to
describe the Son as a creature, although they are in communion with
those who do so. Yet they cannot be said to have altogether abandoned
their Father’s teaching, since Ulphilas in his efforts to
persuade them to join communion with Eudoxius and Valens denied that
there was any difference in doctrine and that the difference had arisen
from mere empty strife.808
808 Christianity is first found among the Goths and some German tribes
on the Rhine about a.d. 300, the Visigoths
taking the lead, and being followed by the Ostrogoths. They were
converted under Arian influences, and simply accepted an Arian creed.
So Salvian writes of them with singular charity, in a passage partly
quoted by Milman (Lat. Christ. I. p. 349.) “Hæretici sunt
sed non scientes. Denique apud nos sunt hæretici, apud se non
sunt. Nam in tantum se catholicos esse judicant ut nos ipsos titulo
hæreticæ appellationis infament. Quod ergo illi nobis sunt,
hoc nos illis. Nos eos injuriam divinæ generationis facere certi
sumus quod minorem patre filium dicant. Illi nos injuriosos patri
existimant, quia æquales esse credamus. Veritas apud nos est. Sed
illi apud se esse prœsumunt. Honor Dei apud nos est, sed illi hoc
arbitrantur honorem divinitatis esse quod credunt. Inofficiosi sunt;
sed illis hoc est summum religionis officium. Impii sunt; sed hoc
putant veram esse pietatem. Errant ergo, sed bono animo errant, non
odio, sed affectu Dei, honorare se dominum atque amare
credentes.” (Salvianus de Gub. Dei V. p. 87.) The spirit of this
good Presbyter of Marseilles of the 5th century might well have been
more often followed in Christian controversy.
“Of the early Arian
missionaries the Arian Records, if they ever existed, have almost
entirely perished. The church was either ignorant of or disdained to
preserve their memory. Ulphilas alone,”—himself a
semi-Arian, and accepter of the creed of Ariminum,—“the
apostle of the Goths, has, as it were, forced his way into the Catholic
records, in which, as in the fragments of his great work, his
translation of the Scriptures into the Mœso-Gothic language, this
admirable man has descended to posterity.” “While in these
two great divisions, the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, the nation gathering
its descendants from all quarters, spread their more or less rapid
conquests over Gaul, Italy, and Spain, Ulphilas formed a peaceful and
populous colony of shepherds and herdsmen on the pastures below Mt.
Hæmus. He became the primate of a simple Christian nation. For
them he formed an alphabet of twenty-four letters, and completed all
but the fierce books of Kings”—which he omitted, as likely
to whet his wild folks’ warlike passions,—“his
translation of the Scriptures.” Milman Lat. Christ. III. Chap.
ii.
The fragments of the work of
Ulphilas now extant are (1) Codex Argenteus, at Upsala. (2) Codex
Carolinus. (3) Ambrosian fragments published by Mai. cf. Philost. ii.
5, Soc. ii. 41 and iv. 33.
On Eudoxius, who
baptized Valens, and was “the worst of the Arians,” cf.
note on page 86. | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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