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 An authoritative record of the outlines of his life was only discovered early in the 19th century in a writing of Auxentius of Milan, his pupil and companion. At an early age Ulfilas was sent, either as an envoy or as a hostage for his tribe, to Constantinople, probably on the occasion of the treaty arranged in 332. 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. For some time before 341 he worked as a lector (reader of the Scriptures), probably among his own countrymen in Constantinople, or among those attached as foederati to the Imperial armies in Asia Minor. From this work he was called to return as missionary bishop to his own country, being ordained by Eusebius of Nicomedia and “the bishops who were with him,” probably at Antioch, in 341. This ordination of Ulfilas by the chiefs of the semi-Arian party is at once an indication of their determination to extend their influence by active missionary enterprise, and evidence that Ulfilas was now a declared adherent of the Arian or semi-Arian party. He was now thirty years of age, and his work as “bishop among the Goths” covered the remaining forty years of his life. For seven of these years he wrought among the Visigoths beyond the Danube, till the success which attended his labours drew down the persecution of the still pagan chief of the tribe. This “sacrileges judex” has been identified with Athanaric, a later persecutor, but the identification is not beyond question. 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. His work and influence were not confined to his own immediate flock, but radiated by means of his homilies and treatises, and through the disciples he dispatched as missionaries, among all the Gothic tribes beyond the Danube. Thus the Church beyond the Danube, which had not been extinguished on Ulfilas’s withdrawal, began to grow once more, and once more had to undergo the fires of persecution. Catholic missionaries had not been wanting in the meanwhile, and in the indiscriminate persecution by Athanaric, between 370 and 375, Catholics and Arians stood and fell side by side. The religious quarrel either accentuated, or was accentuated by, political differences, and the rival chiefs, Athanaric and Frithigern, appeared as champions of Paganism and Christianity respectively. Then followed the negotiations with the emperor Valens, the general adhesion of the Visigoths under Frithigern to Arian Christianity, the crossing of the Danube by himself and a host of his followers, and the troubles which culminated in the battle of Adrianople and the death of Valens (378), The part played by Ulfilas in these troublous times cannot be ascertained with certainty. It may have been he who, as a “presbyter christian ritus," conducted negotiations with Valens before the battle of Adrianople; but that he headed a previous embassy asking for leave for the Visigoths to settle on Roman soil, and that he then, for political motives, professed himself a convert to the Arian creed, favoured by the emperor, and drew with him the whole body of his countrymen—these and other similar stories of the orthodox church historians appear to be without foundation. The death of Valens, followed by the succession and the early conversion to Catholicism of Theodosius, dealt a fatal blow to the Arian party within the empire. Ulfilas lived long enough to see what the end must be. Hardships as well as years must have combined to make him an old man, when in 383 he was sent for to Constantinople by the emperor. A split seems to have taken place among the Arians at Constantinople. Ulfilas was summoned to meet the innovators, and to induce them to surrender the opinion which caused the dispute. His pupil Auxentius describes how, “in the name of God, ” he set out upon his way, hoping to prevent the teaching of these new heretics from reaching “the churches of Christ by Christ committed to his charge.” No sooner had he reached Constantinople than he fell sick, “having pondered much about the council,” and before he had put his hand to the task which had brought him he died, probably in January 383. A few days later there died, also in Constantinople, his old enemy and persecutor, Athanaric.

ULLATHORNE, WILLIAM BERNARD (1806–1839) English Roman Catholic bishop, was born at Pocklington, Yorkshire, on the 7th of May 1806, of an old Roman Catholic family. At fifteen he went to sea, and made several voyages to the Baltic and Mediterranean. In 1823 he entered the Benedictine monastery of Downside, near Bath, taking the vows in 1825. He was ordained priest in 1831, and in 1833 went to New South Wales, as vicar-general to Bishop William Morris (1794–1872), whose jurisdiction extended over the Australian missions. It was mainly Ullathorne who caused Gregory XVI. to establish the hierarchy in Australia. He returned to England in 1836, and, after another visit to Australia, settled in England in 1841, taking charge of the Roman Catholic mission at Coventry. He was consecrated bishop in 1847 as vicar-apostolic of the western district, in succession to Bishop C. M. Baggs (1806–1845), but was transferred to the central district in the following year. On the re-establishment of the hierarchy in England Ullathorne became the first Roman Catholic bishop of Birmingham. During his thirty-eight years tenure of the see 67 new churches, 32 convents and nearly 200 mission schools were built. In 1888 he retired and received from Leo XIII. the honorary title of archbishop of Cabasa. He died at Oscott College on the 21st of March 1889.

ULLMANN, KARL (1796–1865), German Protestant theologian, was born at Epfenbach, near Heidelberg, on the 15th of