Ulfilas

Born around 311 to Cappadocian Greek parents, Ulfilas became a bishop and the apostle to the Gothic people in the fourth century. He waded into the thick of the Arian controversy and won the Goths to Christianity, but his lasting work was linguistic: he created the Gothic alphabet — drawing on Greek, Latin, and Runic forms — to make translation possible. The Gothic Bible that emerged, likely the work of a team under his watch, gave a migrating warrior culture its first literature. He died in 383, having turned belief into letters and letters into a legacy.