Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/876

Rh 352 dominance make their constant contributions. special facts, but for a general estimate, no writer is more instructive than Salvian of Marseilles in the 5th century, whose work Dr’ Gubernrztionc Dci is full of passages con- trasting the vices of the Romans with the virtues of the barbarians, especially of the Goths. In all such pictures we must allow a good deal for exaggeration both ways, but there must be a ground-work of truth. The chief virtues which the Catholic presbyter praises in the Arian Goths are their chastity, their piety according to their own creed, their tolerance towards the Catholics under their rule, and their general good treatment of their Roman subjects. He even ventures to hope that sucl1 good people may be saved, notwithstanding their heresy. All this must have had some ground-work of truth in the 5th century, but it is not very wonderful if the later 'est—Goths of Spain had a good deal fallen away from the doubtless somewhat ideal picture of Salviau. Of modern writers dealing specially with Gothic history may be mentioned Manse (Gcschichta dos 0st-Gothischcn Rciclzas in Italian, Breslau, 1824); Aschbach (Gcschichtc dcr II/cstgotlicat, Frankfort, 1827); Kiipke (Dic Aztfimgc clcs Ko'nigsthums bei den Gothcn, Berlin, 1854; Dahn (Die I(b'nige dcr Gcrmancn, Munich and '1irzburg, 1861-1871); Pallmann (G'cschichtc dcr Volkcrtvanclcrztizg, Gotha and 'eirnar, 1863-1864). It is hard to find any work in English dealing specially with Gothic history, though much may be learned from writers like Gibbon and lil1nan, who deal with the Goths simply as part of some larger subject. Several chapters in the third book of I[ilman’s History of Latin Ch?-istianity are of special importance in this way. (E. A. F.) GOTHIC LANGUAGE. By this name, which may be taken generally as denoting the idioms of the various divisions of the Gothic nation, is more particularly meant the language exhibited in certain fragments of a translation of the Bible and other minor documents, which, although preserved in manuscripts not dating farther back than perhaps the 5th century, and clearly written in Italy during the rule of the East»G0tl1s, are commonly assumed to have originated among the West- Goths at the time when they were seated in Moesia, and to be therefore older by at least a century than the manu- scripts themselves. It is chieﬂy due to this assumption that the more distinctive name of .l[oesogotIu,'c la.n_r/uaf/e is often used, in England and elsewhere, as well as the simpler Gothic. The latter name, however, seems to be more appro- priate, in spite of the great probability of the assumption referred to,—since it is, for obvious reasons, utterly impos- sible to prove that the language of the Vest-Goths at that time differed from that of the East—Goths, or, even if there was any difference, to show that our manuscripts represent the original forms of the speech of their supposed West- Gothic author. Indeed, according to a fragment of a Gothic calendar preserved in one of the Milan manuscripts, which gives the name of the Gothic people as G'ut—tILiucIcc‘ (t/uiucla, “ people"), the most correct form of the name would be Gotic. This spelling at least has obviously greater claims to authenticity than (lot/1.-i, Gotthi, or I‘61-60¢, and other similar forms most commonly (although not exclusively) used by Latin and Greek writers, whose want of familiarity with the sounds of the Gothic language is oft-en abundantly manifest. From G'ut-t/Lizulzc we may infer with certainty that the Goths called themselves Gutrfs, the corresponding adjective being gutislcs. We have no direct evidence of the character of the Gothic language until the time of the above-mentioned manuscripts ; but some conclusions regarding a more archaic state of the 1 The same form of the name seems to occur a second time in the Rnnic inscription of the Bucharest ring, (,'.:t-mi-M2,: lm,ila_r/, “dedicated to the Goths’ treasure." C,‘/'. II. F. Massmann, in I’feiﬂ‘cr’s Germania (Vienna, 1857), ii. p. 209 .97.; and Ludv. Wimmer, Aarbiiger for nordislc Oltlkytzclig/lied og Ilistorie (Copenhagen, 1867), p. 45. GOTHS Notfor] language may be drawn from a careful examination of the numerous words borrowed from Gothic at a much earlier period by some of the Finnish tribes originally dwelling in the interior of Russia.‘~’ It may be safely assumed that some at least of these words still retain forms of the Gothic language from as early a period as perhaps the lSL or 2d century 13.0. By the same date the Goths, as well as the other Teutonic nations, were no doubt already in possession of the Runic alphabet, an adaptation of a parti- cular form of the Latin characters to their special wants and uses.3 No traces of this alphabet, however, have been left, except the already mentioned short inscription of the Bucharest ring, a list of the Gothic names of these runes, preserved in a Vienna manuscript of the 9th century,4 and some letters in Ulﬁla’s Gothic alphabet, which soon sup- planted the less convenient Ilunic characters, and so helped to inaugurate the short literary period of the Gothic language so closely connected with the name of that prelate. Ulﬁla, or rather Vulfila (310—38O A.D., see UL]-‘IL.-), was a man of the most profound learning. He not only invented, as has been said, a new alphabet for his literary purposes, but was also able to preach and to write in Latin and Greek as well as in his native Gothic language, and he is reported to have left behind him a great number of tracts and translations in these three idioms. The principal work of his life, however, was his translation of the Bible, parts of which seem to have reached us in the famous C0dc.r Argenteus, now at Upsala, and in several minor fragments at Volfenbi'1ttel (Codex Carolinus) and Milan (Cotliccs Ambros2'am', including some leaves now kept at Ilome and Turin). In this way we possess the greater part of the gospels, considerable portions of the epistles, and a few fragments of the Old Testament ; there is also a fragment of a commentary on St J ohn’s gospel, commonly called S/rez'rei72s (or “explanation”), and the fragment of a calendar which has been already mentioned as containing the ori- ginal form of the name of the Gothic people.5 As to the authorship of the last two fragments nothing can be said with certainty; and certain differences in language and manner of translation make it doubtful even whether the fragments of the Old Testament can be traced to the same origin as those of the New. The bulk of the whole, how- ever, may safely be ascribed to Ulfila, for it can hardly be assumed that the same work would have been done twice over in so short a space of time as that lying between the days of Ulﬁla and the date of our manuscripts. The whole character of the translation too seems to indicate a man of Ulfil-.1’s mental power and theological learning. Although it cannot be denied that several alterations of the original have been introduced into 0111' texts at a later time, it is certain both that the author carefully interpreted the Greek text (which was of course the fundamental source of his work), and also that be consulted, and in not a few places followed, the old Latin versions where his own ideas seemed to differ from those of his Greek authorities.“ As a specimen of the language, and of Ulﬁla’s mode of translation, we may insert here his version of the Lord’s prayer:— Atta unsar thu in himinam. Vcihnai namo tlu-in. Qimai thiudinassus thcins. Wairthai wilja thcins swe in himina jah ana 9 See Dr VVilh. Thomsen, Ue77er den Einﬂuss (lc-r (:'c-1'ma71i.s-clwu Sprachc-n auf die Fin72.z‘sch-Lappischen (Halle, 1870). 3 See especially Dr Lurlv. Vimmer, Rmzcslcriftcns Oprimlclsc ng Udvikli7z_r/ i Norden. Copenhagen, 1874. 4 J. Zaeher, Das Grntlzisclic Alphabet Vulﬁlas -und das Illumi- alphabr.-t, Lcipsic, 1855. 5 A few Gothic words and names occur among the subscriptions to two Latin charters, one of which is now preserved at Naples; tho othe1', formerly kept at .»‘re:I.:I.o, is now lost. 5 For fuller particulars see the two principal editions of the Gothic texts by V. (1. Gahelentz und Loehe (3 vols., Altenburg and Leipsic, 1843-76), and by E. Bernhardt (llalle, 1875).