Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/333

Rh encouragement for fighting, being only too ready for it already. Perhaps this is the first instance of a Bible expurgated on moral grounds.

Ulfilas's translation only exists in fragments, the most important of which is the Codex Argenteus, containing portions of the Gospels. This manuscript is described by Scrivener as "the most precious treasure of the university of Upsal." It consists of quarto leaves of purple vellum, with letters in gold and silver. The date assigned to it is the fifth or early sixth century; that is to say, only about a century later than the time of Ulfilas himself. Other copies are the Codex Carolinus and the Ambrosian fragments published by Mai. Ulfilas went to Constantinople in the year 380, and there he died, either that same year, or the next year—the year of the second œcumenical council, worn out with his heroic, lifelong toils and the anxieties for his people, which crowded upon his later years. He was succeeded by Selenas—a man accounted " well fitted to instruct the people in the Church."

The subsequent history of Gothic Christianity belongs to Western Christendom, since it follows the migration of the Goths. In Thracia, the home of its origin, it disappeared with the break-up of the nation in the year 395. But it became most important in the Gothic kingdom of Theodoric, which saw Arianism re-established for a time in Italy long after it had been extinguished in the Roman Empire. Under the influence of the same wave of emigration, it passed into Spain and across the Mediterranean to Africa, where at length it perished together with Chris-