Gothic translation of the Bible
In the quiet dignified halls of the Carolina Rediviva Library of Uppsala University, Sweden, is an outstanding memorial to the Apostle of the Goths, Wulfila. There is a permanent display of pages from the Silver Bible, Codex Argenteus, a Byzantine period treasure with an amazing history from Ravenna of the Ostrogoths through many adventures to the safety in the Nordic country, the homeland of the Goths.
The Codex Argenteus Online is a complete digital version of the facsimile edition from 1927, the result of a joint project between Tampere University of Technology and Uppsala University Library.
As in so many other cases, when Jesus Christ, the Word of God, reached the Goths He also gave them literature and often, as this case, also the letters. For in order to translate the first book into Gothic, Wulfila had to first create the alphabet. In Codex Argenteus this great gift to the Goths - the Holy Bible - is beautifully written in their own language and in their own script literally in silver letters.
"In March 1995, parts of the Codex that were on public display in Carolina Rediviva were stolen. The
stolen parts were recovered one month later, in a storage box at the Stockholm Central Railway Station.
The details of the Codex disappearance and wanderings for a thousand years remain a mystery; it is
unknown whether the other half of the book may have survived."
(wikipedia)
(wikipedia)
Ulfilas, or Gothic Wulfila (also Ulphilas. Orphila) (ca. 310 – 383), bishop, missionary, and Bible translator,
was a Goth or half-Goth and half-Greek from Cappadocia who had spent time inside the Roman Empire at
the peak of the Arian controversy.
Ulfilas was ordained a bishop by Eusebius of Nicomedia and returned to his people to work as a missionary. In 348, to escape religious persecution by a Gothic chief, probably Athanaric he obtained permission from Constantius II to migrate with his flock of converts to Moesia and settle near Nicopolis ad Istrum, in what is now northern Bulgaria. There, Ulfilas translated the Bible from Greek into the Gothic language. For this he devised the Gothic alphabet. Fragments of his translation have survived, notably the Codex Argenteus held since 1648 in the University Library of Uppsala in Sweden. A parchment page of this Bible was found in 1971 in the Speyer Cathedral.
His parents were of non-Gothic Anatolian origin but had been enslaved by Goths on horseback. Ulfilas converted many among the Goths, preaching an Arian Christianity, which, when they reached the western Mediterranean, set them apart from their Orthodox neighbors and subjects.
(wikipedia)
Ulfilas was ordained a bishop by Eusebius of Nicomedia and returned to his people to work as a missionary. In 348, to escape religious persecution by a Gothic chief, probably Athanaric he obtained permission from Constantius II to migrate with his flock of converts to Moesia and settle near Nicopolis ad Istrum, in what is now northern Bulgaria. There, Ulfilas translated the Bible from Greek into the Gothic language. For this he devised the Gothic alphabet. Fragments of his translation have survived, notably the Codex Argenteus held since 1648 in the University Library of Uppsala in Sweden. A parchment page of this Bible was found in 1971 in the Speyer Cathedral.
His parents were of non-Gothic Anatolian origin but had been enslaved by Goths on horseback. Ulfilas converted many among the Goths, preaching an Arian Christianity, which, when they reached the western Mediterranean, set them apart from their Orthodox neighbors and subjects.
(wikipedia)
Moesia
The life of Wulfila takes us thus to Moesia where we first met the Goths after they had crossed in mid 3rd century Danube raiding this region and taking especially female captives. These women brought with them in their hearts Christ to the pagan Gothic villages and families.
Later on Goths again captured slaves from neighbouring regions and so the parents of Wulfila were taken from Anatolia to Moesia. In this way this became the homeland of the boy who later was to became the Apostle of the Goths.
Thervingi
Götaland in Sweden (green)
Island of Gotland (red)
Wielbark culture (red)
Late Roman empire (lilac)
(wikimedia)
The Thervingi, Tervingi, or Teruingi (sometimes pluralised "Tervings" or "Thervings") were a Gothic people of the Danubian plains west of the Dnestr River in the 3rd and 4th Centuries CE. They had close contacts with the Greuthungi, another Gothic people from east of the Dnestr River, as well as the Late Roman Empire (or early Byzantine Empire). Archaeologically they correspond to the Sîntana de Mureş- Chernyakhov culture, together with the Greutungi. (wikipedia)
In the fourth century the mighty Thervingi tribes were divided among those who followed Christ and those who followed the ancient pagan idols. Athanaricus (died 381) or Athanareiks "King for the Year", was the king of many Therving tribes. His rival Fritigernus (died 380) was a military chieftain of the Thervings.
Gothic Wars
In the crucial times in early 3rd century when Christ was fighting for the soul of Rome, Constantine the Great ordered that his soldiers helmets and shields should carry the sign of Christ, labarum. His competitor for the rule of Rome was Licinius who was an ardent follower of the ancient pagan gods.
In rather similar manner, during the critical time of the Gothic Wars (367-369, 376-382) when Emperor Valens (328-378) had attacked the Thervingi in the Danube plains in 367, King Athanaricus presented the old Gothic paganism and persecuted his Christian tribesmen to whom his rival, the brave Fritigernus belonged.
Huns in the horizon
Emperor Valens adventures with the Goths were playing with fire. Fritigernus led his people to Christ and he adopted the Arian Christology that Valens himself preferred at these years of the Ecumenical councils of Nice-Constantinople (325, 381). But things did not go well for the Romans...
The Thervingi remained in western Scythia (probably modern Moldavia and Wallachia)until 376, when one
of their leaders, Fritigern, appealed to the Roman emperor Valens to be allowed to settle with his people
on the south bank of the Danube. Here, they hoped to find refuge from the Huns. Valens permitted this.
However, a famine broke out and Rome was unwilling to supply them with the food they were promised nor the land; open revolt ensued leading to 6 years of plundering and destruction throughout the Balkans, the death of a Roman Emperor and the destruction of an entire Roman army.
The Battle of Adrianople in 378 was the decisive moment of the war. The Roman forces were slaughtered; the Emperor Valens was killed during the fighting, shocking the Roman world and eventually forcing the Romans to negotiate with and settle the Barbarians on Roman land, a new trend with far reaching consequences for the eventual fall of the Roman Empire. (wikipedia)
However, a famine broke out and Rome was unwilling to supply them with the food they were promised nor the land; open revolt ensued leading to 6 years of plundering and destruction throughout the Balkans, the death of a Roman Emperor and the destruction of an entire Roman army.
The Battle of Adrianople in 378 was the decisive moment of the war. The Roman forces were slaughtered; the Emperor Valens was killed during the fighting, shocking the Roman world and eventually forcing the Romans to negotiate with and settle the Barbarians on Roman land, a new trend with far reaching consequences for the eventual fall of the Roman Empire. (wikipedia)
Such was the environment in which Jesus Christ conquered the Goths and gave them their language in writing. This was to be of great significance soon as the Fall of Rome and the end of the classical world was fast approaching. It has also lasting importance to the history of Iberian Peninsula and Christ reaching Spain as well as to the Byzantine history of northern Italy.
No comments:
Post a Comment