Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.)Culture and art

Wulfila’s Gothic Bible

Wulfila (Ulfilas), bishop of the Christian Goths who had settled in Roman Moesia, devised an alphabet for their language and led the translation of the Bible from Greek into Gothic — the earliest substantial text in any Germanic language and the Scripture of the Goths, who accepted Christianity in its Arian form.

Date: between 348 and 383exact date unknown: an interval is given
Place: Nicopolis ad Istrum (Moesia)approximate locationtoday: near Nikyup, Veliko Tarnovo Province, Bulgaria · Balkans and Anatolia
Participants: Ulfilas (Wulfila), Goths, Constantius II
Threads: Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.)
Also known as: Gothic Bible; Wulfila Bible; Ulfilas Bible; Gothic alphabet; Codex Argenteus; Готская Библия; Библия Вульфилы; Готский алфавит; Серебряный кодекс

Wulfila was born around 311, probably in the Gothic lands north of the Danube; his ancestors were most likely Cappadocian Christians carried off by the Goths in a raid of 264 or 267. Consecrated bishop by Eusebius of Nicomedia in 341 (or, by another dating, 336), he preached among the Goths for seven years, until in 348 a Thervingian judge (iudex) began to persecute the Christians. Wulfila then led his followers across the river into the empire; Constantius II let them settle in the mountains near Nicopolis ad Istrum in Moesia, and Wulfila remained their bishop until he died in Constantinople in 383.

For the translation he devised the Gothic alphabet, based mainly on the Greek letters of his day, with some Latin and possibly a few runic characters. The sources do not say when the work was done: it was made in Moesia between 348 and 383, and by the traditional dating it was completed around 369. According to a tradition recorded by Philostorgius, Wulfila translated all the books of Scripture except the Books of Kings, full of wars, so as not to encourage the warlike spirit of his people. Many scholars now think that the translation was made by a team of translators under his direction rather than by Wulfila alone.

The Gothic Bible was read by the Goths and probably by other peoples — Gepids, Vandals, Burgundians — who accepted Christianity in the Homoian (Arian) form that Wulfila professed. About three-quarters of the New Testament and fragments of the Old survive, above all in the Codex Argenteus, a luxurious 6th-century copy on purple parchment written in silver and gold ink, probably for the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great; it is now kept at Uppsala.

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Related events

Gothic invasions of the Balkans and Asia Minor238–271 · Balkans and AnatoliaWulfila’s Cappadocian ancestors were probably carried off in a Gothic raid of the 260s
Chernyakhov culturebetween 200 and 250 – between 400 and 430 · Eastern EuropeWulfila preached among the Goths north of the Danube, whom archaeologists associate with the Chernyakhov culture
Gothic War (376–382)376 – 3 October 382 · Balkans and Anatoliathe Goths who crossed the Danube in 376 turned to Christianity in its Arian form in the following years
Jerome begins the Vulgate382 · Western and Central Europein the same decades the Bible was translated anew into Latin and for the first time into Gothic