Ulphilas, or WULFILA, the translator of the Bible into Gothic, was born about 311 A.D. among the Goths north of the Danube. Consecrated a missionary bishop to his fellow-countrymen by Eusebius of Nicomedia in 341, after seven years' labour he was forced to migrate with his converts across the Danube. For over thirty years he laboured in Lower Mœsia, at the foot of the Hæmus, visited Constantinople in 360 in the interest of the Arian party, and again in 381, only to die a few days after his arrival. For the history of the great monument of Teutonic philology which renders his name for ever memorable, see GOTHs.
See the Lives by Waitz (Hann. 1840) and Bessel (Gott. 1860), the Hulsean Essay by C. A. Scott (1885), and H. M. Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism (1882).