Did an "Arian Version" of Eusebius's Historia Ecclesiastica Once Exist (with a long ending describing the victory of Eusebius's side under Constantine)?

Year / period	Philostorgius (esp. I–II)	Socrates / other “orthodox” historians	Gelasius of Caesarea (Wallraff–Stutz–Marinides)	Rufinus (translator and continuer of Eusebius)	Implications for a “longer Arian Eusebian HE”
305–306 (Constantius & Constantine)	Constantius made emperor in the West, dies in Britain; Constantine arrives, buries him, is at once proclaimed successor (I.5–6, nn.7–8 = 305–306).	Eusebius HE 8–9 and VC 1 present the standard tetrarchic succession; later Socrates/Sozomen just re-package it with more conventional imperial terminology.	Gelasius’ F2–F5 retell the end of Diocletian/Maximian and the origins of Constantine and his family, but as the preface says, this is a “re-narration” in order to continue beyond Eusebius, not a replacement of him.	Rufinus explicitly positions himself as translator of Eusebius HE in nine books, then as continuator. In the preface he says the Greek tenth book contained “very little history” and mostly panegyrics of bishops, which he omits and fuses the historical residue into book nine. He then composes books ten and eleven himself, “like the two little fish,” covering events “from the time of Constantine after the persecution to the death of the emperor Theodosius.” This means that for 305–306 he is simply transmitting the same short Greek HE as everyone else, not a longer Arian recension. His own additions begin only once Constantine has already overcome the persecution phase.	For this early tetrarchic phase there is no sign of any expanded “Arian” HE: Philostorgius’ notice is compatible with the common short Greek HE; Gelasius and Rufinus both treat their material here as re-telling or framing, not as filling a gap in Eusebius. The hypothesis of a longer HE gains no leverage from this period.
312 (vision & battle at the Milvian Bridge)	Highly dramatized cross-in-the-sky with Latin slogan “In hoc signo vinces”; Constantine converts and defeats Maxentius (I.6, nn.9–10).	Eusebius VC 1.28–32 has the vision but no Latin slogan; Lactantius has only a dream with chi-rho on shields; Socrates and Sozomen harmonize.	Gelasius’ F6–F7 retell Constantine’s victory over Maxentius and his support of Christians as part of his “post-Eusebian” narrative.	In Rufinus the Milvian Bridge material stands at the end of his book nine (still “Eusebius”) and at the threshold of his continuation, but the preface is explicit: the part he attributes to Eusebius ends before he himself launches into the Nicene/Arian material. He does not treat the Milvian episode as belonging to a later, expanded historical edition of Eusebius; it is just the familiar VC/HE dossier wrapped into his Latin redaction.	The Milvian dossier is universally regarded as belonging to Eusebius’ existing HE/VC complex, not to a lost expanded edition. Philostorgius’ more baroque version does not claim to rest on a different Eusebian text, and both Gelasius and Rufinus treat their elaborations as post- or para-Eusebian. Again, nothing here pushes us toward positing a suppressed Arian HE.
325 (Council of Nicaea; Alexander of Alexandria, Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia)	Alexander of Alexandria supposedly comes to Nicomedia before the council and sways a gathering there; Philostorgius’ Nicene narrative (I.7–9) is strongly Arian: Arius is treated sympathetically, the homoousion is a violent innovation, only Secundus and Theon refuse, the rest (including Eusebius of Nicomedia) sign under protest, reading ὁμοιούσιος under ὁμοούσιος.	Socrates HE 1.8–10 gives a pro-Nicene script: Alexander of Alexandria as defender of the faith; Nicaea as the decisive moment; more than two hold out; the “Eusebians” are bad actors but not granted Philostorgius’ sympathy.	Gelasius’ big Nicaea block F11–F14 overlaps the same dossier: F11 “Way to Nicaea”; F12 “Council of Nicaea,” including F12a–f: parties for/against Arius, burning of petitions, the dialectician converted by a simple confessor, Paphnutius and Spyridon anecdotes, and “decision at Nicaea and its discontents.” The stance is pro-Nicene and explicitly frames itself as doing what Eusebius did not do: giving a true “historiographical” account of the council itself.	Rufinus’ book ten opens exactly here and is explicitly his own continuation, not “Eusebius”: 10.1: Alexander succeeds Achillas in Alexandria; Arius, a presbyter “religious in appearance,” introduces novel doctrines; Alexander tries gentle admonitions; the controversy spreads to other cities; Constantine is informed and summons the council of 318 bishops to Nicaea. 10.2–3: Constantine’s burning of petitions, speech about bishops as “gods,” and the conversion of the dialectician by a simple confessor. 10.4–5: Paphnutius the confessor, and Spyridon of Cyprus, with exactly the anecdote pattern you see in Gelasius’ F12d–e. 10.6: Nicene creed, anathemas, and canons; and the classic story that only seventeen bishops sided with Arius, six went into exile with him, and eleven “signed with hand, not heart,” at the instigation of Eusebius of Nicomedia. All of this Rufinus explicitly presents as his fish-like “additions” beyond the Greek HE, not as part of Eusebius’ own text. And the theology is entirely anti-Arian: homoousios is the Spirit-led conciliar decision, Eusebius of Nicomedia is the “chief designer of the pretence.”	Here we are at exactly the point where a “longer Arian HE” would have to show its hand. Instead, both Gelasius and Rufinus treat the rich Nicene anecdote tradition explicitly as post-Eusebian continuation material. Philostorgius’ Arianized Nicaea reads like an ideological rewriting of the same dossier, not like a quotation of a fuller Eusebian original; and Rufinus’ preface is a direct denial that Eusebius himself ever wrote the sort of council-history Philostorgius presupposes.
c. 328 (Death of Alexander of Alexandria; ordination of Athanasius)	Philostorgius gives the classic Arian slander: Athanasius hijacks the see by forcing two Egyptian bishops, locked in a church, to ordain him; others anathematize him; Alexander is retrospectively painted as inconsistent.	Socrates, Sozomen, and Athanasian hagiography stress Alexander’s designation of Athanasius and a regular synodical ordination, and reject the Arian story as calumny.	Gelasius’ Athanasian fragments (F18–F21) revolve around Athanasius as Nicene hero, resistance to Arius’ rehabilitation, fabricated charges, and appeal to Constantine.	Rufinus 10.15 explicitly gives Athanasius’ childhood “baptizing game” on the seashore; Alexander discovers that the boy’s mock-baptisms were canonically correct; he treats them as valid and has the boys raised “for the church.” Athanasius is then educated as a sort of new Samuel in the sanctuary, becomes Alexander’s deacon at Nicaea, and on Alexander’s death “puts on the ephod” as his legitimate successor. No trace here of the Arian “illicit ordination” legend; Rufinus is on the same track as Gelasius and the Athanasian dossiers. Again, the key point for the question: this is squarely in Rufinus’ own book ten, i.e. in his continuation, not Eusebius’ Greek text.	Philostorgius’ hostile Athanasius-tradition is sharply at odds with the Nicene hagiographical stream represented by Socrates, Gelasius, and Rufinus. But those Nicene sources all explicitly place this material in the realm of “after Eusebius.” If a longer HE once existed, we would expect someone to say “Eusebius tells this story differently”; instead the fight is between rival post-Eusebian traditions, with Eusebius’ silence taken for granted.
330 / 334 (Foundation of Constantinople; Alexander of Constantinople; Eusebius of Nicomedia)	Philostorgius dates the founding/dedication of Constantinople to “the twenty-eighth year of Constantine” (glossed as 334) and compresses the episcopal succession so that, on the death of Alexander of Constantinople, Eusebius of Nicomedia is simply translated to the new see (I.9–10; n.31 flagged as dubious by Valesius).	Socrates gives the more familiar sequence: Metrophanes → Alexander of Constantinople → Paul → Eusebius of Nicomedia, etc., and dates the dedication to 330. He is explicitly correcting alternative lists.	Gelasius’ fragments do not have a standalone “foundation of Constantinople” narrative, but in F22b (“Alexander’s prayer and the death of Arius”) and related material he presupposes Alexander of Constantinople as a real, independent episcopal figure, not just a stepping-stone for Eusebius of Nicomedia, and the Vita Metrophanis et Alexandri is treated as drawing on his dossier.	Rufinus’ narrative of this phase is concentrated in 10.12–14. 10.12: Constantia (Licinius’ widow, Constantine’s sister) has become attached to a semi-Arian presbyter; on her deathbed she commends him to Constantine and hints that “innocents” (i.e. Arius) have been punished unjustly. Constantine, moved by his sister, recalls Arius from exile and, impressed by Arius’s creed, refers the matter to a council in connection with the dedication of Jerusalem. 10.13–14: Eusebius of Nicomedia, leveraging his influence over Constantius, convenes a synod in Constantinople to force Alexander of Constantinople to admit Arius. Alexander spends the night in prayer at the altar; Arius dies in the latrine when his bowels pour out; Eusebius and his party are shamed. Constantius, however, remains under their influence. Rufinus thus gives you Alexander of Constantinople as a real bishop, locked in conflict with Eusebius of Nicomedia and the court, and places the Arius episode in Constantinople. But again, this is explicitly Rufinus’ own continuation, not part of Eusebius HE. That makes Rufinus a witness against, not for, Philostorgius’ claim that Eusebius’ own history ran down into this phase.	Philostorgius’ compressed Constantinopolitan succession and dating presuppose an Arian chronographic framework, but the “orthodox” side (Socrates, Gelasius, Rufinus) unanimously treats this whole Constantinople dossier as their own terrain, after Eusebius’ stop. When Philostorgius later says Eusebius brought his history down to the succession of Constantine’s sons, the way these continuators handle precisely this material makes it more plausible that he is retrojecting his continuous Arian chronicle back onto Eusebius, not citing a genuinely longer HE.
c. 336–337 (Death of Arius; Alexander of Constantinople; Eusebius of Nicomedia; Constantine’s last years)	Philostorgius stresses Arian rehabilitation under Constantine’s later years and into Constantius; the Alexander-prayer / latrine-death story is sidelined or re-colored in a way that fits Arian sensibilities; emphasis is on Eusebius of Nicomedia’s prominence and the succession of Constantine’s sons. He explicitly says Eusebius “brought down his history to the period when Constantine the Great was succeeded in the empire by his sons” (I.2, n.3), implying an extended HE.	Socrates and Sozomen give the classic story: Arius about to be readmitted at Constantinople; Alexander prays that God remove him rather than let him communicate; Arius’ bowels gush out in the privy; Alexander dies not long after; only later does Eusebius of Nicomedia secure the see, under Constantius. Arius’ death is firmly dated to Constantine’s lifetime.	Gelasius F22 (“Death of Arius early in the reign of Constantius”) and F22b (“Alexander’s prayer and the death of Arius”) show him using the same Alexander / latrine story, but with a chronological rubric that nudges it into the early years of Constantius. So in content he lines up with the Socrates/Sozomen story against Philostorgius, but his dating has a whiff of the “Arian chronographic” pattern that prefers to associate the crisis with Constantius, not Constantine.	Rufinus 10.12–14 gives the fullest Latin version of exactly this dossier: Constantia’s Arian presbyter; Constantine persuaded that Arius may have been unjustly condemned; Arius composes an apparently orthodox creed; Constantine, still cautious, sends him to a council. Eusebius of Nicomedia manipulates Constantius and pushes another council at Constantinople; Alexander refuses to admit Arius; spends the night at the altar praying “Judge, O Lord, between me and the threats of Eusebius and violence of Arius!” Arius, on the way to the church, turns aside “at a call of nature”; his bowels and intestines fall out into the drain; Eusebius and his party are disgraced; the heretics then conspire to suppress the story so Constantius will not realize he has been the victim of perfidy. Rufinus very clearly regards this as part of his own Latin continuation (book ten), not something he found in Eusebius’ Greek HE. He explicitly describes his two books as going “from the time of Constantine after the persecution to the death of Theodosius.” If we are hunting for a lost longer Arian HE, Rufinus is therefore not a positive witness: he knows exactly the same Arius/Alexander/Eusebius of Nicomedia narrative that Gelasius and the later Greek historians deploy, but he marks it as post-Eusebian.	This is the key test-case. Philostorgius’ explicit claim that Eusebius wrote down to the succession of Constantine’s sons is contradicted in practice by how the “orthodox” tradition locates and labels the Arius/Alexander/Eusebius dossier: Gelasius says he is treating what Eusebius “did not record,” and Rufinus twice insists he himself is the one who carries the story from Constantine’s later years into the Theodosian age. The fact that Rufinus shares essentially the same narrative complex as Gelasius, Socrates, and Sozomen but attributes it to his continuation, not to Eusebius, makes him very strong negative evidence for a genuinely longer HE behind Philostorgius.
Extent / endpoint of Eusebius’ Church History	Philostorgius: “Eusebius brought down his history to the period when Constantine the Great was succeeded in the empire by his sons” (I.2, n.3). On that basis, later readers have posited a longer Eusebian edition, possibly Arian-leaning, that went beyond book ten as we have it.	Socrates HE 1.1 presents Eusebius HE as ending with Constantine’s victory over Licinius and the peace of the Church (c. 324/325). All later continuation-historians treat their own works as starting where Eusebius stopped; the “sons of Constantine” belong to their remit, not his.	Gelasius: in his preface (F1b), he says explicitly he will write “the history of the things that happened after Eusebius and of the things that Eusebius did not record.” The fragment listing shows him starting again from Diocletian/Constantine (F2–F10) and then continuing at least to Valens (F28). So the combined “Eusebius + Gelasius” codex does, in practice, run from the apostles to after Constantine’s sons and the Arian conflicts, but Gelasius is clear about where Eusebius proper ends.	Rufinus is the clearest explicit witness on this point. In his preface he says: – The Greek book ten “has very little history in it; all the rest is bishops’ panegyrics” which “add nothing to our knowledge of the facts.” – He therefore “omitted what seemed superfluous and joined what history there was in it to the ninth book, which we have made the conclusion of Eusebius’s account.” – “The tenth and eleventh books we composed… adding them like two little fish to the aforesaid loaves.” – These two books cover “from the time of Constantine after the persecution to the death of the emperor Theodosius.” Then, in the short conclusion “Preface to the Continuation of Rufinus,” he repeats that “the record of the affairs of the church with which Eusebius has provided us extends to this point. We for our part have briefly added… the events which followed.” So, from Rufinus’ own testimony: The Greek HE he had ended where everyone else says it does, before the major Arian councils and the succession of Constantine’s sons. All the Nicene, Constantian, Arian, Athanasian, and post-Constantinian material we now read in his books 10–11 is consciously his continuation, not Eusebius.	When you line the columns up, Philostorgius stands virtually alone in attributing the post-Nicene, Constantian, and “sons of Constantine” material to Eusebius himself. Socrates, Gelasius, and especially Rufinus all define their work precisely as continuation “after Eusebius” and consistently treat the crucial Arian dossiers as outside his HE. Read against that background, Philostorgius’ remark is best explained as loose shorthand for a composite “Eusebius + continuators” narrative current in Arian circles, not as hard evidence for a lost longer Eusebian edition. The cumulative pattern of the table therefore supports the consensus view: our ten-book HE, ending around Licinius’ defeat / Constantine’s early peace, is essentially the scope of Eusebius’ own work.