Christ and Goths before Wulfila

Map of modern Ukraina

Mark Furnival writes about the great division of the Gothic tribes at this time:

Gothic power came to an abrupt and dramatic end in the 270s, when the Emperor Aurelian caught up with a raiding army and destroyed it, killing the Gothic king, Cannabaudes. This precipitated a major shift in the balance of power in Eastern Europe. The appearance of the Gepids to fill the vacuum, drove a wedge between the Tervingi branch of the Goths, west of the Dniester, and the Greutungi, east of the Sea of Azov. While the Tervingi consolidated their realm between the Dniester and the Danube, and became known to the Romans as the 'Visigoths', the Greutungi, or Ostrogoths, were conquered by the Huns, who swept into Europe from the Asiatic steppes in the latter half of the Fourth Century.

(M. Furnival)

Woman missionaries
The events during the almost hundred years "mission of the captive Christian women" and before Wulfila (310-383) became the first bishop of Goths are apparently not very known from historical sources. We can try to imagine how the Kingdom of God progressed in the areas of modern Ukraina - for it did. Instead of mistreating their Christian captives from Moesia and Asia Minor, the Goths may have greatly valued their culture, traditions and religion and wanted to learn from them also about Jesus Christ.

Socrates Scholasticus
Socrates Scholasticus finished writing his Historia Ecclesiastica in Constantinople during the rule of Emperor Theodosius II and probably in 439. But alas, the respected historian gives no role to the captive women at all. Instead, he concentrates on the much later personal decision of the king of Goths, Fritigernes during the time of Emperor Valens who ruled 364-378.

The barbarians, dwelling beyond the Danube, called the Goths, 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: 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.

(Socrates Scholasticus c. 439 AD)

But at that time Christ was already well known by many Goths and they had their own Bishop also known to Socrates:

Ulfilas, their bishop at that time, invented the Gothic letters, 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': 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.
(Socrates Scholasticus c. 439 AD)

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It is noted in the translation of Socrates Church history that
"The 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.

Perhaps these sources have some more information about the events during the 3rd century when Christ conquered the fearsome Goths by using the tragic captivity of Christian women as a powerful weapon.

...
Post script - After writing this I analysed the referred sources in other blogs and saw that they do not give first hand information about late 3rd century but concentrate on the events during the 4th century.

I did find out, however, that the lost history of Philostorgius wrote about the pious captives with whom Christianity reached Goths before Wulfila.