OUR KINSMEN – The Goths

By W. F. Finlayson

They Enabled Israel To Complete  The Trek To The Isles

Part One

MOST PEOPLE today think of the Goths as the savage barbarians who  destroyed the  Roman  Empire  and ushered in the Dark Ages. Such is the ignorance of our untutored  times! Yet it requires  only a little study to discover that the Goths, far from being the destroyers of culture, were in fact its saviours. The degenerate regime which they brought down  had  been  ‘weighed  in the balances’ of Almighty God and found wanting: it was no longer  a fit repository of civilisaton.  It is true  that ‘conquering Rome became herself subdued by the Arts of Greece’ and was for a period custodian  of ordered progress.  However,  as  Christians realise, the  true civilisation is not to be achieved by the outward adorning of magnificent temples and civic buildings, but through the inner adorning of human  hearts yielded to God through Christ.

Not that we  would  for a moment disparage the astonishing achievements of the ancient artists, writers and philosophers. They had a noble part to play in raising mankind’s aspirations. As the Law prepared  Israel for the coming of Christ, so Greek culture, in its own way, helped  to prepare mankind for the  coming  of the Saviour. Nevertheless, however great the revelation of Greek art, literature and philosophy, it is and must always remain a shadow of the glorious substance of the Gospel of Christ.

The Goths came from Scythia

God’s  ultimate  purposes were  not to be fulfilled through the tyrants of Rome, but through the peoples already gathering in the islands and coastlands of the North-West, to whom the Goths were kinsmen. These were  being colonised by branches of the so-called ‘Scythian’ tribes, who suddenly appeared in recorded history in the 7th and 6th centuries B.C., and who were actually gentilised tribes of Israel who had disappeared as such from about 720 B.C. onwards.

Celts, Picts and  Scots and  Anglo-Saxons were  all branches of the ‘Scythian’ migrations. Ancient history and literature testify that the Goths also were a Scythian people – the Getae. Jordanes, the Goths’ own historian, called his history ‘A Getic History’ and his account  of Gothic migrations begins with the history of the Scythians and the Getae.  Cassiodorus,  the mighty Theodoric’s secretary,  also wrote  a divided  history of the Goths connecting  them with the Scythians. Helvius Portinax suggested that Caracalla add ‘Geticus Maximus’ to his titles as ‘he had defeated in irregular battles the Goths who are called the Getae’. In the poems of Claudius, the Goths are also called the Getae and they were so named on the Roman Arch of Triumph. Herodotus  writes of them as being the bravest and most honest people of Thrace and relates how they alone opposed Darius when he approached the Danube. The Goths first appear  in history in the ancient lands of the Getae.

According to Ulfila, the name of the Get in their own language was Gut-thiuda which means  ‘the People of God’. A fragment a Gothic calendar contains the word Gut- thiuda. Jacob Grimm, the great scholar confirmed the testimony of ancient  history and literature. Some modern historians have opposed this evidence and have suggested  that the  Goths originated  in Scandinavia. However, the Gothic settlements there prove that they were  late incomers from  the east,  who  had  settled territories outside the most fertile and attractive parts of Europe, which were already in the possession of other strong peoples.  Furthermore, the vast territory over which they moved, and the huge armies which they could deploy to meet and defeat the disciplined forces of Rome make  it highly improbable that  they could  have  so recently arrived from a remote  obscure  region of the north.

The Baltic – A Gothic Halting Place

Pytheas, a Greek traveller of c. 300 BC wrote of the Goths as the Guttones who dwelt in what is now East Prussia and traded  in amber  which they gathered  on the shores of the Baltic. They were dwelling there around A.D. 70 according to Pliny, the Roman writer. About A.D. 200 the Goths divided into two branches:Visigoths (West­ Goths) and the Ostrogoths (East-Goths). The fact that these  names remained appropriate throughout the history of the two branches surely suggests  that they were a people with a purpose.

The Gothic tribes were organised in clans under the rule of a king who had to be of Royal blood. Each clan had its chieftain, who was elected  for his valour and ability. There was a council of leading men, with a general assembly  of warriors. There was a certain  degree  of democracy, for when the Visigoths entered  the Roman Empire in A.D. 376, the decision was made  not by the king alone, but by a general assembly of the people. They had a regular priesthood under a High Priest, which has been likened by modern historians to the Druids. Each clan had its own priest.

The similarity to the Clan system of ancient Scotland is striking. When migrating, their temple was replaced by a sacred  tent, reminiscent  of the Tabernacle of the Israelites. According to Bradley, no mention is made by any ancient writer of any Gothic deity. However, it would appear  that, until their conversion  to Christianity, they were  deluded  by the prevailing idolatry of the times. Nevertheless, like the ancient Greeks, they had a strong sense of righteousness.

Blue-eyed, Fair-haired Giants

Sylvian called the Goths ‘a treacherous people but a chaste  one’, and of the Saxons  he wrote  ‘ferociously cruel but remarkably chaste’. Faithfulness in marriage was demanded by law and  proven cases  of adultery were  severely punished  – often  by death.  They kept themselves separate from  other  races  and  forbade intermarriage. The Romans usually described them as blue-eyed ‘giants’  with reddish  or blond  hair. Gothic cemeteries of the Iron Age and  Roman  period  reveal them as large-limbed and long-skulled.

The Goths owned  vast herds  of cattle. They were great beer-drinkers and enjoyed gathering together for feasts in which they entertained themselves with songs exalting their heroes. At the season of the new moon they assembled to administer  justice.

The Runic  alphabet which  is found  on countless monuments in Scandinavia, Iceland and  Britain originated with the Goths. This is a corruption of a Greek alphabet, used by colonies on the west coast of the Black Sea. The Gothic language as found in Bishop Ulfila’s translation of the Bible is similar to old Anglo-Saxon, and students of English study it to learn the origins of English words and grammar. English, German, Dutch, Swedish and Norwegian were all originally dialects of the same languarge spoken by the Scythian tribes, which diverged through  the centuries.

Scourge of Rome

The martial prowess of the Goths gained  them  the respect of the Romans, who at one period paid them to defend the borders of their empire. When the Romans defaulted in their payments, the Goths reacted by plundering the provinces. Attacked by a punitive Roman army under General Decius, the Goths retreated safely across the Danube, joined by large numbers of deserters from the Roman army. In A.D. 251 Decius, now Emperor of Rome, confronted the Goths in Moesia. The Emperor’s son was slain at the commencement of the battle, and Decius was killed when  he rushed madly into the fray seeking revenge. The Romans were taught a grim lesson and were glad enough  to pay the Goths a huge sum to leave their territory.

A Gothic  fleet  of 500 vessels  sailed  through  the Bosporus, and  Greece was  their next victim. The magnficent Temple of Diana of the Ephesians – one of the Seven Wonders of the World – was destroyed. Athens was plundered; but the Goths did not burn the city which had produced the greatest  culture the world had ever known: most  of its wonderful  buildings were  left undamaged. Through the Black Sea and the Hellespont, a huge fleet sailed carrying an army of 300,000 Gothic warriors.  Their reverse  at the  hands  of the Emperor Claudius II delayed  for a while the inevitable doom  of the empire.

Part Two

A Rearguard Remains in the Asgard  Region

CLAUDIUS TREATED the Goths with great respect and granted them the province of Dacia, including what is now Roumania and the eastern part of Hungary. They then became allies of Rome and provided her army with 2,000 cavalrymen. For fifty years  the  Goths  rested peacefully, only to try their strength once again against the Romans. They were defeated by Constantine in A.D. 322. They were granted honourable terms of surrender. When Constantine fought a decisive battle the following year, which resulted in him becoming sole Emperor of Rome, he was assisted by 40,000 Goths. Eight years later Constantine was again having trouble with them, losing one  battle but winning others. Again he treated  them kindly and was rewarded with a further 30 years of peace.

The Beginning of the End for Rome

A large Gothic population still remained in Southern Russia under king Ermanaric, a hero in Anglo-Saxon and Viking poetry, who extended the dominions of the Goths until the onslaught of the savage Huns. In his old-age he was unable to defeat  this terrible foe whom  the Goths swore were  the  offspring  of witches and  demons. Modern scholars believe the Huns to have been the Hsiung-nu, who are frequently mentioned in Chinese annals. The aged Ermanaric took his own life in A.D. 375.

The  Ostrogoths submitted  to the  Huns;  but  the Visigoths decided to ask the eastern Emperor Valens for permission  to enter  Moesia. A population of Christian Goths had  already settled in  Moesia to  escape persecution by their pagan brethren. Valens made  it a condition  of his permission that the Visigoths accept Christianity as their national  religion. Agreeing to this condition, a small, unique, proud nation, now numbering a mere  70,000, crossed  the  Danube  and entered the Empire.

Unfortunately, the Emperor’s representatives failed to organise  adequate provisions,  and  threatened by famine, the Visigoths revolted. The Emperor and two­ thirds of his army perished near Adrianople in A.D. 378. The Visigoths were recognised as Foederati by Emperor Theodisius in A.D. 382, but after his death the Visigoths, under Alaric,   attacked Thrace, threatened Constantinople and  invaded  Greece.  In A.D. 399, the Emperor Arcadius bestowed  on  Alaric  the  title  of Magister Militae and authorised him to settle in lllyria.

In A.D. 401, Alaric with his people descended upon North Italy. The Divine purpose in the use of this Gothic ‘Battleaxe’, at this time, can be seen  in the immediate withdrawal of the Roman Legions from Britain to meet threat to Rome. Alaric retreated safely across the Danube, and when Stilicho – the only able leader the Romans had – was assassinated, the Visigoths again invaded  Italy. Alaric, assured that  he was  divinely directed, made straight for Rome. After three sieges, his army entered Rome. Alaric commanded his warriors  not  to harm unresisting citizens and to spare churches. When  the gold and silver, belonging to the Church of St. Peter, was discovered by a Gothic captain, it was promptly returned escorted by a detachment of Goths. The victorious Goths left Rome laden with plunder, but at the end of the year-A.D. 410- Alaric died. The Visigoths, once again allies of the Romans, went to Gaul and defeated the Huns, thus delivering civilisation from destruction by a ferocious heathen menace. Restlessly, they moved  to conquer Spain and to found the Gothic monarchy  which ruled that country until the Moorish conquest. The Goths gave Spain national unity; their goldsmiths inspired her great traditions in art; and their writers – such as Isadore of Seville- influenced her literature.

The Ostrogoths

The Ostrogoth’s destiny was to conquer and control Italy. They revolted against the all-conquering Huns and regained their independence. With a commission from Emperor Zeno to recover Italy from Odoacer  the Hun and his Heruli, the entire Ostrogoth people trekked 700 miles at the end of which they fought and defeated the Hunnish Heruli. Rome received the Gothic King, Theodoric, as Deliverer; and Italy came  under Gothic rule for almost  60 years. Theodoric enforced  a rigid separation between his  people and  the  Italians  – intermarriage was  forbidden.  The Ostrogoths were  a martial community of about 200,000 warriors and their families distributed  throughout  the country. They were governed by their own laws and the Italians continued to be governed by Roman laws. The Goths kept to their Arian brand  of Christianity, but  tolerated  the  Roman Catholic Church.

Theodoric The Magnificent

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Ravenna wrote of Theodoric: ‘He was an illustrious man and full of goodwill towards all. He reigned 33 years and during 30 of them so  great  was  the  happiness of Italy that  even  the wayfarers were at peace.. . belonging himself to the Arian sect, yet he ordained that the civil administration should remain  for the Romans  as it had been  under  their Emperors.. . He attempted nothing against the Catholic Faith. He pleased all the nations around  him for he was a lover of manufactories and a great restorer of cities.’ Procopius, an  official  in the Imperial  Army wrote:

‘Theodoric  was an extraordinary lover of justice and adhered rigorously to the laws. He guarded  the country against barbarian invasions and displayed  the greatest intelligence and prudence. There was in his government scarcely a trace of injustice….’ Gibbon writes: ‘The Gothic Kings, so injuriously accused of the ruin of antiquity, were anxious to preserve the monuments of the nation whom they had subdued. The royal edicts were framed to prevent the abuses,  the neglect, or the depredations of the citizens themselves. A professed  architect, the annual sum of two hundred pounds of gold, twenty-five thousand tiles and  the  receipt  of customs from  the Lucrine port, were assigned  for the ordinary repairs of the walls and public edifices. A similar care was extended to the statues of metal or marble of men or animals.’

What Italy needed desperately was a long period of peace  and prosperity; and this the Goths gave her. The great cities were  restored and national life revived. However,  whereas the Visigoths in Spain  eventually became Catholics and  thus  ensured the  continued favour of their subjects, the Ostrogoths in Italy remained Arians and this inevitably resulted  in their ultimate rejection.

Decline of the Goths in Italy

After Theodoric’s death, there was a continual power struggle between the Gothic rulers and Roman factions which eventually resulted in the final defeat of the Goths. After the last great  battle  between the Goths and Romans, the  Goths worn  out  with  fatigue sent ambassadors to treat for peace. They refused to humble themselves to become the subjects of Justinian,  but promised  that on the condition of being allowed an unmolested passage out of Italy and of being provided with money to meet  the expenses of the journey, they would never again  take up arms against the Romans. The Romans  had such  a respect  for their ancient  foe that they gladly agreed  to the conditions  rather  than continue  the grim struggle. In A.D. 553 the remnant  of the Ostrogoths marched northward out of Italy and out of history.

Of this great people, Chambers’s encyclopaedia says:

‘A completely  unjustified reputation  for barbarism  has been  attached to the  Gothic  name. In reality  their disappearance had the most disastrous consequences… the Empire was incapable of protecting  Italy: three years  after  Justinian’s death  the  Lombards  invaded, unopposed.’

Goths in Britain

It is not generally realised that branches of the Goths migrated to Britain. When the ambassadors of the Gothic Kingdom in Italy told Belisarius that they had restored Sicily to the Emperor, he replied: ‘But we assent  to the Goths holding the whole of Britain ‘The historian Alex Del Mar writes of the Goths occupying  the area of the Firth of Forth. Caithness  is believed to have derived its name from the Getae, also the island of lnchkeith in the Firth of Forth.

Robert Craig Maclagan, M.A. wrote in his book, Our Ancestors: ‘Bede, speaking of the separation of the Picts and Scots from the Britains by the Firths of Forth and Clyde, says that the eastern inlet has in the midst of it the city Giudi. This is undoubtedly “lnchkeith” meaning “Geatas island,” and the name Giudi identifies it with the Jutes. Nennius tells how Octa and Ebissa, Hengist’s son and  nephew,  at the invitation of Vortigern, occupied many regions even to the Fresic (Frisian) Sea, our Firth of Forth, the Scotwater.  Connecting  gew withju, it is interesting to note that, in the genealogy of St. Patrick, Hengist is introduced as an ancestor,  from an earlier belief that he was connected with the Jutes, and he is said to have been of ‘Jewish’  descent. In Anglo-Saxon, Gjudeas equates with the  Latin Judaei,  according  to Cleasby. The Jutes  were  a branch  of the Goths. Old Danish monuments have Gutland for Jutland. In Edward the Confessor’s Laws, Jutland  is Gutlandia. Alfred the Great renders the Juti of Bede by Geatas.

Our Ancestors

The question: ‘what became of the Goths?’ has long puzzled the historians. We who  are conscious of our Israel ancestry can confidently accept that the greater part of their descendants dwell in Great Britain and her ‘white’ Commonwealth, in the coastal fringe of north­ west Europe and in the United States of America. In all of these lands of the modem Israel nations, they continue to fulfil their great destiny as the Gut-thiuda; the People of God.

AUTHORITIES

The Goths (H. Bradley).

Letters of Cassiodorus.

Gothic Handbook (W  M. Ramsay),

Our Ancestors  (R. C. Maclagan, M.A.).

Everyday Life of the Barbarians (M. Todd).

Chambers’s Encyclopaedia.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire(Gibbon).

Theodoric  the Goth (Thomas  Hodgekin).

Courtesy of  ‘COVENANT REPORT’- BIWF[NZ]