Wulfila

Wulfila (b. in Danube basin in S.E. Europe, ?-383, Constantinople), a Christian missionary of half Gothic, half Cappadocian parentage, became bishop in 341 with the task of spreading Christianity among the West Goths in the Balkans. About 369 Wulfila, who had become the Primate of the Goths, began to translate the Bible into Gothic. He did not complete the work and the extent of the contribution of later translators is unknown. Wulfila's Bible is known principally in the Codex argenteus, a MS. of the four Gospels, preserved at Uppsala. Fragments of the Gothic Bible are also preserved at Wolfenbüttel and Milan, and a further fragment was recently discovered in Speyer (1971).

Wulfila, who devised the first Gothic characters, used the Septuagint for the Old Testament, and a text similar to that used by St Chrysostom for the New Testament. The Greek form of the name, Ulfilas, is also in use.