Wulfila

Wulfila, also known as Ulfilas, was a 4th-century Christian bishop and missionary to the Goths in the Roman Empire. He is best known for creating the Gothic alphabet and translating the Bible into Gothic, producing what is often called the Ulfilan Bible—the oldest substantial text in a Germanic language.

Born in the eastern Roman world, in Cappadocia, around 311–315, Wulfila came from a Christian family with Gothic ties. He was educated in the Greek-speaking world and became a proponent of Arian Christianity among the Goths. Around 341 he was ordained bishop of the Goths and led a mission to convert Gothic communities along the Danube, establishing Gothic churches and administering Christian practices in their language.

To accompany his missionary work, Wulfila devised a writing system for Gothic modeled on the Greek script, with a few additional characters to represent sounds not found in Greek. He then translated the Bible into Gothic, a monumental scholarly and linguistic achievement that helped preserve the Gothic language and provided crucial data for the study of early Germanic languages and Christian text transmission.

The most famous manuscript of his translation is the Codex Argenteus (the Silver Bible), a 6th-century copy whose surviving leaves, along with other fragments, are key witnesses to Gothic and the Ulfilan translation. Wulfila’s work influenced the Christianization of the Goths and remains a foundational source for historical linguistics and early Germanic studies.

Wulfila is believed to have died circa 383–386.