Charles Anderson Scott

“ The personal qualities of the man may be inferred from his pupil’s description of him as “of most upright conversation, truly a confessor of Christ, a teacher of piety, and a preacher of truth—a man whom I am not competent to praise according to his merit, yet altogether keep silent I dare not.” ”

“ During the preceding century Christianity had been planted sporadically among the Goths beyond the Danube, through the agency in part of Christian captives, many of whom belonged to the order of clergy, and in part of merchants and traders. Ulfilas may therefore have been a convert to Christianity when he reached Constantinople. But it was here probably that he came into contact with the Arian doctrines which gave the form to his later teaching, and here that he acquired his command over Greek and Latin. ”

“ To save his flock from extinction or dispersion, Ulfilas decided to withdraw both himself and his people. With the consent of the emperor Constantius he led them across the Danube, “a great body of the faithful,” and settled in Moesia at the foot of the range of Haemus and near the site of the modern Tirnova (349) . Here they developed into a peace-loving pastoral people.
The life of Ulfilas during the following thirty-three years is marked by only one recorded incident (Sozomen iv. 24) , his visit to Constantinople in January 360, to attend the council convened by the Arian or Homoean party. ”