Truth Triumphant - Benjamin G. Wilkinson

career when Ulfilas was a lad. Asia Minor, the
homeland of his ancestors, was, in the early years
of the church, the scene of strong opposition to
those allegorizing ecclesiastics who had been
loaded with imperial favors by Constantine, and
who were antagonistic to Lucian’s translation of
the Bible and his system of teaching. Ulfilas was
called to take his choice. He decided not to walk
with the allegorizers. The Gothic Bible which he
gave to the nations he converted follows in the
main the Received Text transmitted to us by the
learned Lucian.[2] Such early contacts and
associations molded the belief and plans of Ulfilas.
The Goths along the north shore of the Black Sea
had pushed their boats to the southern harbors and
had carried away captive the ancestors of Ulfilas
who resided in Asia Minor.
Constantine II, son and successor to
Constantine, did not, as previously noted, partake
of his father’s views, and he had thrown the aegis
of imperial protection around the other party which
was branded by the church at Rome as Arians. To
these he had granted full religious liberty. What
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