CHAPTER I.

PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY.

Gratianus, Hist. of the Propagation of Christianity in the States of Europe, arisen from the ruins of the Roman Empire, Tübg. 1778, 2 vols. †Hiemer, Introduction of Christianity in German countries, Schaffh. 1857 sq. Döllinger, Manual of Ch. H., Vol. I., Pt. II., p. 138-244. Engl. Transl. of Germanic Nations. Rettberg, Ch. H. of Germany, Vol. I. Krafft, Ch. H., Vol. I., Pt. I., p. 327 sq. †*Friedrich, Ch. H. of Germany, Bamberg, 1867 sq., 2 vols. Rückert, Hist. of the Civilization of the German People during the period of their transition from Paganism to Christianity, 2 vols., Lps. 1853. Fehr, Introd. to the Hist. of Church and State in the Middle Ages, Stuttg. 1859. The same, State and Church in the Frankish Empire, Vienna, 1869. E. v. Wietersheim, Hist. of the Migration of Nations, 4 vols., Lps. 1869. Gfrörer, Contrib. toward a Hist. of German Popular Rights in the Middle Ages, 2 vols., Schaffh. 1865–66. Pallmann, Hist. of the Migr. of Nations, 2 vols., Weimar, 1862-1864. TR.-For a lucid survey of the Migr. of Nations, see the Hist. Atlas by Spruner and by *Wedell, which is still better than the former.

§ 148. Among the Goths.

Conf. the art. "Goths" in the Freiburg Eccl. Cyclop. and the works of Waitz on the Life and Doctrine of Ulfila, Hanover, 1840, and Bessel, The Life of Ulfila and the Conversion of the Goths, Götting. 1860.

The coming of our Divine Lord, which effected so great a revolution in the spiritual world, exercised an influence no less potent and radical in the political. During the course of the fourth and fifth centuries, the nations of the North and East commenced to move forward toward the South and West, without, as we should judge, either guidance or purpose, but really in obedience to a call from God,' and for the accomplishment of a holy destiny. They were carried forward toward the land in which the Light of the world had dawned, and where its effulgence was steadily growing in splendor, till their vast multitudes fairly thronged those countries in which, according to divine appointment, the Church

1 John vi. 44.

of Christ had already been established. That so momentous a significance should attach to the migration of nations was early asserted by the unknown author of a work directed against Pelagius, and entitled De Vocatione Gentium.1 Neither was the Church unprepared or unwilling to give a warm welcome to these rude warriors. On the contrary, she was patiently waiting the time when it should graciously please God to call both kings and people within the subduing influence of His holy faith.

In the second century of the Christian era, the Goths, issuing from the wilds of Scandinavia, sought a home on the shores of the Black Sea. Of these, the Ostrogoths settled between the Don and the Dniester, and the Visigoths between the Dniester and the Theiss. From the third century onward, they waged bloody and relentless wars against the Roman. emperors, and not unfrequently made incursions into the provinces, and particularly into those of Greece and Asia Minor, carrying desolation wherever they went.

Having been expelled from Thrace by the victorious Constantine, numbers of them entered the imperial army, and it is chiefly to the valor of their arms that the victory gained over Licinius at Byzantium, A. D. 323, which decided the fate of the world, should be ascribed.

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3

It was from the soldiers of the Roman legions, taken prisoners during these conflicts, that the Goths gained their first knowledge of the Christian religion. They were represented at the Council of Nice, a. d. 325, by Bishop Theophilus, and about the year 347, Cyril of Jerusalem, speaking of them, said: "Bishops and priests, and even monks and nuns, may be found among the Goths."

They preserved the Catholic faith pure and intact until the reign of Valens, from whom the Visigoths, divided into two bodies under the respective leaders Fridiger and Athanaric, and driven forward by the advance of the Huns (A. D. 326),

1 Rösler, Dissert. de magna gentium migratione ejusque primo impulsu. Tüb. 1795, 8vo.

2 Sozom. h. e. II. 6. Philostorg. h. e. II. 5.

3 Socrat. h. e. II. 41.

♦ Cyrill. Catech. 10, 19; 13, 40.

sought an asylum. The emperor granted them permission to take up their abode on the southern bank of the Danube, but only on condition that they should embrace Christianity, which, under the circumstances, meant simply the Arian heresy. This conversion was mainly effected by the labors of Ulfila,' their great apostle and bishop.

He was the descendant of a noble Gothic house, and was sent as a hostage to Constantinople, shortly after the Council of Nice, A. D. 325, and while in the capital embraced Christianity. He accepted it, with simple and earnest faith, just as he found it, putting aside all the idle and speculative questions that distracted the religious mind of that age. Having returned among his countrymen, he for a time held the office of lector; but, having shortly afterward invented Gothic characters, he set to work on a Gothic translation of the Bible, most of which has been preserved to us, bearing ample testimony to the ability with which the work was done.

When Theodosius commanded all the subjects of the Roman Empire to accept the Nicene Creed, the Goths, animated by a spirit of bitter hostility to the Romans, refused to give up the teachings of Arianism.

From the Visigoths the Arian heresy spread rapidly among Ostrogoths and the Vandals, the Burgundians and the Suevi, all of whom obliged the Catholics among whom they chanced to settle, to embrace its teachings.3

On the death of Valens, Gratian compelled the Goths to submit to his authority (A. D. 379–380), and St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople, taking advantage of this favora

1 Wulfila, Wölflein or Little-wolf.

2 Socrat. h. e. III. 33. Sozom. VI. 37. Theodoret. IV. 33. Ulfila's translation of the Bible, ed. by Zahn, Weissenfels, 1805; then, Ulfila's O. and N. Testam. fragm., etc., edd. de Gabelentz et Loebe, Vol. I. Altenburg, 1836, Vol. II. Ips. 1842-1847 (with a full Glossarium and Grammar of the Gothic language); thereto a Supplement, by Loebe. Massmann, The Holy Scriptures of the O. and N. T. in the Gothic language, with Greek and Latin text, annotations, Dictionary, and Hist. Introd. Stuttg. 1856. It is rather affirmed than denied that this translation of the Bible is free from Arian views; but, on the other hand, Arianism is most certainly found in Ulfila's profession of faith, with the remarkable addition: Ego Ulphila episcopus et confessor semper sic credidi. Conf. Krafft, 1. c. p. 327-361. Waitz, in 1. c. Bessel, in 1. c.

3 Conf. Walch, Hist. of Heretics, Part II., p. 553–569.

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ble turn in affairs, set to work with characteristic zeal and energy to spread the knowledge of Christianity more generally among them. He provided Gothic missionaries in the very city of Constantinople, and set apart a church in which divine worship was conducted in the Gothic language. The dedication of this church was the occasion of one of those eloquent discourses, so peculiar to the great orator, in which the miraculous conversion of these barbarous nations was adduced as a proof of the civilizing influence of the Gospel,1 and as a verification of the prophecy of Isaias: "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together." St. Athanasius, marveling at their conversion, cries out, in a spirit of triumphant joy: "Who has reconciled those who were formerly at deadly enmity with each other, and united them in the bonds of enduring peace, if it be not Jesus Christ, the Savior of all men, the Well-Beloved of God the Father, who, for our sakes and for our salvation, has deigned to suffer for all? The prophecy of

2

Isaias, 'They shall turn their swords into ploughshares and their spears into sickles,' has been fulfilled, and, wonderful to relate, these people, by nature barbarians, who while they, remained idolaters were ceaselessly engaged in deadly conflict against each other, never putting aside their arms, have since their conversion to Christianity given up their habits of war and devoted themselves to the peaceful cultivation of the fields.”

St. Jerome was still more surprised when, in his distant cave at Bethlehem, he received a letter from two Goths, by name Sunnia and Fretella, begging him to state his opinion as to the merits of the Latin and Graeco-Alexandrian translations of the Bible, both of which varied somewhat from the original Hebrew.

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Who," says he, "would believe that the barbarous Goths study the oracles of the Holy Ghost in the text of the original Hebrew, while the listless Greeks appear to take no interest in such studies." Both of these fathers also testify

1 Homil. III. opp. Chrysost., T. XII., ed. Montfaucon.

2 Isaias, lxv. 25; cf. xi. 6.

3 Hieronym. ep. 106. Quis hoc crederet, ut barbara Getarum lingua Hebraicam quaereret veritatem, et dormitantibus, immo contemnentibus Graecis ipsa Germania Spiritus Sti eloquia scrutaretur? (opp. £. I., p. 641.)

that of the Goths under Athanaric, some bore witness to their faith, and proved the sincerity of their love of the Church, by suffering martyrdom rather than give up the doctrines which she had taught them.

§ 149. Christianity among the Visigoths. Their Kingdoms in Gaul and Spain.

Jornandes, de rebus Geticis seu de Getarum (Gothorum) origine, c. 1-3, ed. Stahlberg, Hagen, 1859; ed. Closs, Stuttg. 1861. Idoti, chronicon in Florez, España sagrada, T. IV., p. 289-501; Isidor. Hispal. chronica regum Visigothorum. (opp. ed. Arevelo, T. VII., p. 185.) † Aschbach, History of the Visigoths, Frankft. 1827, 2 vols. Helfferich, The Arianism of the Visigoths, Berlin, 1860. †Gams, Ch. H. of Spain, Vol. II., p. 395 sq.

In the year 410, Rome was taken by the Visigoth Arians under Alaric, and if the disgraceful circumstances which preceded and led to its capture, have no parallel in the fall of any other city, neither have the moderation and generosity with which the conquerors treated the vanquished inhabitants of the once proud mistress of the world.

That the mildness and clemency exhibited by the Barbarians on this occasion are evidence of that humane feeling so characteristic of the Germans, there can be no doubt, but it is equally undeniable that these are in part to be ascribed to the civilizing influences of Christianity. Did not Æneas see, asks St. Augustine:

"But what was novel" (in the sack of Rome), continues the Bishop of Hippo, "was, that savage Barbarians should show themselves in so gentle a guise, that the largest churches were chosen and set apart to be filled with those to whom quarter was given; that in them none were slain and none forcibly dragged out; that into them many were led by their relenting enemies to be set at liberty, and that from them none were led into slavery by merciless foes. Whoever fails to see," he adds, "that this is to be attributed to the name of Christ, and to the Christian temper, is blind; whoever sees this, and gives not thanks to God, is ungrateful; and who