Auxentius on Wulfila: Translation by Jim Marchand

Now the letter (the Latin text is also available) declares that the aforementioned bishops,
along with Bishop Wulfila had
proceeded to the East to the court of Theodosius, the emperor ...

Auxentius

... [Wulfila was] of great propriety, verily a confessor of Christ, a teacher of piety and a
preacher of truth. He never hesitated to
preach quite openly and very clearly to willing and unwilling alike the one true Cod, the
Father of Christ, and the second rank of
this same Christ, knowing this one true Cod to be alone unbegotten, without beginning,
without end, eternal, exalted, sublime,
excellent, most high creator, epitome of all excellence, better than all good, interminable,
uncontainable, invisible, immense,
immortal, incorruptible, incommunicable, of incorporeal essence, not compounded of
parts, simple, immutable, undivided,
immovable, lacking in nothing, inaccessible, undivided, unbounded, ungoverned,
uncreated, unmade, existing perfectly in
Onness, incomparably greater and better than all. Who being alone, not to the division or
diminution of His divinity, but to the
display of His goodness and power by His will and power alone, passionless
passionlessly, incorruptible incorruptibly,
immovable immovably, did create and beget, make and establish an only-begotten God.

He never concealed that, according to the authority and tradition of the Holy scriptures,
this second God and Author of all
things existed by the Father, after the Father, for the Father, and for the glory of the
Father; rather he always set forth according
to the Blessed Gospels that He was both great God and great Lord and great King, and
great Mystery, great Light and great
Pontifex, providing and law-giving Lord, Redeemer, Savior, Pastor (?), born before all
time, Creator of all creation, just Judge
of the quick and the dead, having a greater God, His Father, for he (Wulfila) despised and
trampled on the odious and
abominable, depraved and perverse confession of the Homousians as a devilish invention
and doctrine of demons. He himself
knowing and handing down to us that, if the indefatigable virtue (power) of the only-
begotten God is reliably said to be capable
of having made all things celestial and terrestrial, invisible and visible, and is believed
rightly and faithfully by us Christians, why
is it not credited that the passionless power of God the Father might create His only-
begotten Son? But he also deplored and
shunned the error and impiety of the Homoiousians, being himself most carefully
instructed out of the Holy Scriptures and

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confirmed earnestly therein in many councils of saintly bishops, as he spread abroad by
his words and tractates, that the Father
and Son were different in their divinity, unbegotten and only-begotten God, that the
Father was creator of the Creator, that the
Son was truly Creator of all creation; and the Father was the Cod of the Lord, that the
Son was then God of all creation.

Wherefore he scattered the sect of the Homousians, because he believed not in confuse
and concrete persons, but in discrete
and distinct ones. The Homoiousians, however, he put to flight, since they defended the
assumption that they were not of
comparable but different substance. And he did not preach the Son to be similar to his
Father according to the fraudulent
Macedonian depravities and perversities against the Scriptures, but according to the
Divine Scriptures and Traditions.

In his preaching and exposition he asserted that all heretics were not Christians, but
Antichrists; not pious, but impious; not
religious, but irreligious; not timid but bold; not in hope but without hope; not worshipers
of God, but without God, not
teachers, but seducers; not preachers, but liars; be they Manichaeans, Marcinonists,
Montanists, Paulinians, Psabbelians,
Antropians, Patripassians, Photinans (?), Novatians, Donatians, Homousians,
Homoiousians, or Macedonians. Verily, as an
imitator of the apostles and an imitator of the Martyrs, his work repelled the false
doctrine of the heretics and edified the people
of God, put to flight the hungry wolves and bad dogs and preserved the flock of Christ by
His grace as a good shepherd with
all prudence and diligence.

He also subscribed to the concept that the Holy Ghost was neither Father nor Son, but
created by the Father through the Son
before all things, that he is not first nor second, but placed by the first through the second
in third rank; that he is not unbegotten
nor begotten, but created by the unbegotten through the begotten in the third rank,
according to the evangelic preaching and
apostolic tradition of St. John, who says: "All things were made by him and without him
not any thing was made;" (John 1.1)
and by blessed Paul who asserted: "[there is] but one God the Father, of whom are all
things ... and one Lord Jesus Christ
through whom all things are." (1 Cor. 8.6)

For, an unbegotten God being in existence and one Lord only-begotten existing by God,
the Holy Spirit Advocate can be said
to be neither God nor Lord, but is fixed by God through the Lord to be: not the creator
nor the author; but the illuminator and

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sanctifier, teacher and leader, helper and postulant, teacher (?) and informer, minister of
Christ and dispenser of grace, the
pledge of tradition in whose sign we shall be on the day of redemption, without whom no
one can say that Jesus is the Lord, as
the apostle says: "No one can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor.
12.3) and as Christ says: "I am the
way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me." (John 14.6)

Therefore, they are Christians who worship Christ in the spirit and the truth ... and
through Christ with love offer thanks to God
the Father.

Following this and similar doctrines for 40 years flourishing splendidly in the bishopric
through apostolic grace, he preached in
the Greek, Latin, and Gothic tongues without ceasing in the one and only Church of
Christ; because the Church of the Living
God _is_ one, the pillar and column of Truth; and he affirmed and witnessed that the
flock of Christ, our Lord and God, was
one, one the worship and one the house; one the Virgin, one the Spouse, one the Queen;
that there was only one vine, temple,
congregation of the Christians; that all other places of congregation were not Churches of
God, but Synagogues of Satan.

And whoever reads this, let him know that he taught and expounded to us all this
concerning the Sacred Scriptures. He also left
behind in those very three languages several treatises and many interpretations, for the
use and edification of the willing, for his
own eternal memory and grace.

Whom I am unable to praise sufficiently; yet I cannot be silent, who more than all others
am in his debt, in that he worked more
richly on me, taking me in early years from my parents as his student, he taught me the
Holy Scriptures and made manifest to
me the truth. And by the kindness of God and the grace of Christ he reared me bodily and
spiritually as a son in the faith.

According to God's providence and Christ's kindness he was ordained -- for the salvation
of many -- bishop among the people
of the Goths at the age of 30 from the position of lector, so that he might not only be heir
of God and co-heir of Christ, but
through the grace of Christ also an imitator of Christ and His Saints, in that the holy
David was set as King and Prophet at the
age of thirty in order to both lead and teach the people of God and the children of Israel,
so also this blessed man was revealed
as it were as a prophet and set as a priest of Christ, in order to lead and better the people
of the Goths, to teach them and edify

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them, and according to the will of God and with the help of Christ this was fulfilled
through his activity (ministry) in a remarkable
manner. And just as Joseph was made manifest (as God's minister) in Egypt at the age of
thirty ... and as the Son of God, our
Lord and God Jesus Christ, was constituted at the age of thirty according to the flesh and
baptized and began to preach the
Gospel and to feed the souls of men, so did this Saint upon the command of Christ
himself and His direction better and teach
the people of the Goths, who were living in hunger and deprivation of preaching
indifferently; he made manifest to them and
taught them to live in accord with the rule of the Gospel, the Apostles and the Prophets,
and as Christians to be truly Christians,
and thus increased the number of Christians.

At which point by the envy and the machinations of the Enemy (Satan) a persecution of
the Christians in the countries of the
barbarians (trans-Danubian Goths) was set in motion with tyrannic terror by the godless
and blasphemous chief (iudex) of the
Goths, so that Satan, who wanted to do evil, did good against his will; he wanted to make
sinners and apostates of them; but
with Christ's aid and help, they became martyrs and confessors, that the persecutor might
be confounded and those who
suffered persecution be crowned. He who sought to conquer, blushed as vanquished, and
they who were tempted rejoiced as
victors.

Then after the glorious martyrdom of many servants and handmaidens of Christ, the most
holy man, the blessed Ulfilas, having
completed seven years in the office of bishop, was driven out by the vehemently
threatening persecution from the country of the
barbarians with a great host of confessors onto Roman soil and here honorably received
by the Prince Constantius, of blessed
memory. Just as God freed His people through Moses from the power and might of
Pharaoh and the Egyptians and caused
them to walk through the sea, and provided for his Own service, just so did God free the
Goths through the often named
confessor of his Holy Only-begotten Son out of the lands of the barbarians and cause
them to cross the Danube and to serve
Him in the mountains according to the example of the saints.

Remaining with his people, not counting those 7 years, 33 years on Roman soil, he
preached the truth -- just as he was also an
imitator of certain ancient Saints in this matter too -- he completed a space of 40 years, so
that he left this life at the age of 70
after the completion of many deeds.

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After 40 years had been completed, he departed at the imperial behest to Constantinople
to a disputation against the ... and he
insisted on going in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that they might not teach and
infest the churches of Christ dedicated
by him to Christ. ... Having entered into the above city, he immediately began to fall ill,
since the impious ones had again
reconsidered the situation of the council, so that the more to be pitied as miserable (the
orthodox party) might not be shown to
be condemned by their own judgement and be shown to be punishable by the eternal
judgement (as heretics). In which
sickness he was taken away in the manner of the Prophet Elisha.

It is now fitting to consider the merit of the man, who went by the leadership of the Lord
to Constantinople, nay Christianople,
where the holy and unspotted priest of Christ might receive such wondrous and splendid
honors from the saints and his fellow
priests, the worthy one from worthy ones worthily in such a multitude of Christians. And
he, moreover, at his leave-taking, at
the very moment of his death, left through his testament a statement of his faith for the
people committed to him, saying thus:

I, Wulfila, Bishop and Confessor, have always believed thus and in this sole and true
faith I make my journey to
my Lord,

I believe

that there is only one God the Father, alone unbegotten and invisible, and in His only-
begotten Son, our Lord and
God, creator and maker of all things, not having any like unto Him. Therefore there is
one God of all, who is also
God of our God, And I believe in one Holy Spirit, an enlightening and sanctifying
power. As Christ says after the
resurrection to his Apostles: "Behold I send the promise of my Father upon you; but
tarry ye in the city of
Jerusalem until ye be clothed with power from on high." (Luke 24.49) And again:
"And ye shall receive power
coming upon you by the Holy Spirit." (Acts 1.8) Neither God nor Lord, but the
faithful minister of Christ; not
equal, but subject and obedient in all things to the Son. And I believe the Son to be
subject and obedient in all
things to God the Father.