Gothic Role Models?

I have recently been reminded an “Arian” church that existed in much of Europe during the chaotic period, roughly 400-700 C.E., when “barbarian” tribes  from the east fought with the Byzantine Empire, and with each other, for control of what had been the old Roman Empire in the west. Those barbarians, with some exceptions, were Christians of the Arian variety, having been converted by a missionary named Ulfila, whose accomplishments included the translation of the Scriptures into Gothic.

There was a Gothic Language? If so, were other things written in it? How did those “Arian” Christians worship, and in what language? Assumedly, if they recited any version of the Nicene Creed, they would have said that the Second Person of the Trinity was of “like being” to the Father, rather than (as “orthodox” believers like us say) of “one being” with “Him.” If this were the case, how might those subtle distinctions have been expressed in Gothic?

It would be surprising if the only difference between the “Arian” churches and their “Catholic” neighbors were this bit of linguistic fine-tuning, but whatever footprint those barbarian invaders may have left has been obscured by their total assimilation with the Latin-speaking people they conquered and then joined. The last vestige of a parallel church organization in the part of western Europe controlled by barbarians disappeared about 660. All that’s left of them are words in our vocabulary like “vandalism,” “Goth,” “gothic,” and “frank.”

Unless… there is something about their approach to Christianity that has continued, unnoticed and behind the scenes, and, having come to light in our own chaotic times, may serve to inform our own sense of identity and calling.

Perhaps it’s a stretch, but what if the uncharacteristic tolerance of the Arian conquerors toward their Catholic subjects were not just a matter of expediency or indifference, but of conviction?  Perhaps there is an entire tradition of Christian belief and practice that has said, in effect, “who cares if they say the creed a little differently? It’s just words, after all…”. And, what if the Arian church was less hierarchical, less centralized, and less insistent upon uniformity of belief? What if their response to the breakdown of imperial authority (caused, at least in part, by them) was a greater trust in the anarchic teachings of a non-imperial Christ? Perhaps they distrusted the secular power they saw being wielded by the Catholic bishops of their acquaintance, especially by the occupants of the Roman See. Perhaps they maintained their separate (though apostolic) succession of itinerant bishops because they saw the alliance of Gospel with Empire as a contradiction .

As a theological position, “Arianism” long ago lost whatever allure it may once have had. The original followers of Arius in were not “Unitarians,” or “upholders of a more ‘Jewish’ form” of Christianity. They were Hellenistic nitpickers, whose need for (what we would call) academic credibility led them far into a realm of metaphysical speculation, and could be said to have forced the church to define its faith in terms that lose much of their meaning outside their original context. What I admire in the Gothic, Lombard, and Vandal churches is not their Arianism, but their theological humility, a virtue for which their Athanasian opponents, the “winners” in the ecclesiastical power struggle of the 4^th Century, were not then, or ever, to be known.