Ulfila

O contributie insemnata in propagarea crestinismului in Dacia in perioada postaureliana, a avut-o episcopul Ulfila (Wulfilas) si ucenicii sai (27), care a pastorit sapte ani in nordul Dunarii, predicand pana la anul 355 in limba gotica, latina si greaca populatiei romanice bastinase si gotilor increstinati, pentru care a tradus Biblia si a inventat alfabetul gotic, punand bazele primelor monumente ale limbii germane scrise.

Christianity came to the Goths in the east much before (Ulfila and his Couds Argenteus) it came to Central Europe--possibly because the Goths who were 'settled' folk and hence civilised and more 'amenable' to newer trends of thoughts than the warring central European tribes--geographically too the Goths were closer to the middle east where Christianity originated.

Denying, first, that the Goths had a `national' religion (because we know of many individual Catholics among the Goths), Amory goes on to reverse the received view that Arianism was the Gothic nation's traditional form of Christianity, inherited from their forefathers who received it from Ulfila as the religion (at the time) of the Roman Emperor and the court.

If this reviewer has any serious criticism of the book, it is that Todd ignores topics like the Arianism of Ulfila or the conversion of Clovis, which require an evaluation of literary evidence.

Arius himself, the `Eusebians' (perhaps), the Goths christianized by Ulfila, and Eunomius are all `Arians'.