[gothic-l] Gothic Christianity

[george knysh]

What is interesting here, I think, is not so much the
indubitable fact of the Christianization of most Goths
after the fall of the Attilanic Empire (and many
groups were Christian even earlier), but the specific
nature of Gothic Christianity. Especially the
interplay between Arianism and Orthodoxy. The earliest
Gothic Christians (whose bishop attended the Council
of Nicea) were apparently not Arian. Due to the
situation in the Roman Empire in the 340's and 350's
and beyond, the greatest religious figure in the
history of Gothic Christianity, Bishop Ulfila, was an
Arian. I haven't made a special study of this, and
stand to be corrected, but it seems to me that while
the conversion of pagan Goths to Arian Christianity in
the 370's was quite understandable in terms of the
political situation in the Empire, this was no longer
the case after the advent of Theodosius. There were of
course "Orthodox" Goths, but the fact that in an epoch
increasingly devoted to the affirmation of Orthodoxy
in many dimensions (late 4th to mid-5th c. and beyond)
most Goths remained Arian, and, quite significantly,
that most of the new contingents moving into and
around the boundaries of the Roman Empire opted for
Arianism and not for Orthodoxy speaks volumes for the
existence and nurture of "Gothic identity". An
identity now associated with Arian Christianity rather
than traditional Paganism. And this Gothic brand of
Christianity seems to have been popular among other
Germanic peoples too, though the specifics varied. The
Franks, for instance, opted for Orthodoxy. I'm not
certain how long Arianism persisted among the Goths
and other peoples (perhaps those who know might say)
but I do remember that in Spain it continued as the
Christian option of the Wisigothic monarchy until the
end of the 6th century at least. And this goes beyond
the parameters of the list, but wasn't St Bonifatius
involved in disputes with Arian bishops as late as the
first half of the 8th c.?

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