[gothic-l] The Gothic equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon Thegn

[Marja Erwin marja-e@riseup.net [gothic-l]]

On Mar 20, 2015, at 1:50 PM, edmundfairfax at yahoo.ca [gothic-l] <gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> wrote:

> As European history during the last 1500 years clearly shows, Christians have been no less warriorlike or militaristic than the infidel or heathen. Need I mention the Crusades, amongst many other examples?
> 
> Edmund

But Christianity covers a lot of ground. We’d need to figure out what the evidence says about Gothic Christianity, in particular, and which pattern that would fit in other branches of Christianity.

So what evidence do we have?

1. The Passion of St. Saba and the other martyrologies.

2. Reading-choice and word-choice in the Gothic bible.

3. The claim that Wulfila was the son, or perhaps the grandson, of slaves.

4. The claim that Wulfila did not translate the four books of Kings.

5. The personal names of known Gothic Christians. Alareiks, of course, was named (or named himself) -reiks, but few known Christians of the previous generation had been so named, and some had been named (or named themselves) -thius.

I think that’s enough to show a conversion from below, and a degree of conflict with existing power structures, and possibly with existing military institutions.

I don’t think that’s enough to show whether or not they were leaning towards a peace church pattern before 376, and that had definitely changed by 395.
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