Gainas

Gainas was the Gothic general (magister militum) who rose to high command in the Eastern Roman army under the emperor Arcadius and dominated affairs at Constantinople around 399-400, before his revolt collapsed and he was killed late in 400. Nilus of Ancyra addresses him here as "the general" (stratelates) and writes to him as a committed Arian, the letters forming a running theological dispute in which Gainas presses Arian arguments by letter and Nilus rebuts them. The exchange centers on the nature of the Son: Gainas cites scriptural texts such as Christ's "interceding on our behalf" (Hebrews 7:25) and "the Lord created me as the beginning of his ways" (Proverbs 8:22) to argue the Word is a lesser, created being, while Nilus insists on the Son's full divinity and consubstantiality and denounces the "beast-minded Arians." Nilus' editor explicitly identifies the recipient as Gainas the Gothic magister militum and Arian adherent, and the letters repeatedly invoke his military rank, addressing him as a powerful but doctrinally adversarial correspondent.