Various Surviving Narratives for the Events Around Nicaea Compared

Year / period	Philostorgius	Eusebius VC 2–4	Gelasius	Rufinus	Socrates
305–306 (Constantius & Constantine)	Constantius made emperor in the West, dies in Britain; Constantine present, buries him, and is immediately proclaimed successor (I.5–6).	VC 1–2 give the standard tetrarchic succession and Constantine’s rise; no distinctive miracle motif here beyond providential framing.	Early fragments (F2–F5) retell the end of Diocletian and Maximian and Constantine’s origins as a new “start” after Eusebius; broadly same political arc, no unique detail from Philostorgius.	Rufinus’ book 9, his “Eusebius” section, reproduces the usual HE story of Constantius’ death and Constantine’s succession; no special Arian coloring or emphasis in that Greek source.	Socrates 1.2–3 recycles the same tetrarchic framework and Constantine’s accession, basically in line with HE and VC, not Philostorgius’ Arianizing emphases or any novel tradition.
312 (Vision & Milvian Bridge)	Highly dramatized cross in the sky with Latin slogan “In hoc signo vinces”; victory over Maxentius and Constantine’s conversion (I.6), presented as a decisive turning point in his reign.	VC 1.28–32 narrates a heavenly sign and Constantine’s vision, but no Latin slogan is given; the account is more diffuse, visionary, and panegyrical than Philostorgius’ formulaic version.	Fragments F6–F7 reuse the Constantine-and-Maxentius victory dossier and his favoring of Christians; no explicit “In hoc signo vinces” formula, only victory theology and imperial favour.	End of book 9, still under the “Eusebius” heading, has the Milvian narrative in the familiar HE and VC form, without Philostorgius’ exact Latin motto or his more polemical colouring.	Socrates 1.2 and following take over the victory and vision tradition but again no “In hoc signo vinces” as a Latin slogan; they align with VC and Lactantius, not Philostorgius’ precise wording.
325 (Council of Nicaea)	Alexander of Alexandria comes to Nicomedia before the council; Philostorgius’ Nicene story is strongly Arian: Arius sympathetic, homoousios a violent innovation, Secundus and Theon alone refuse, others sign under protest (I.7–9).	VC alludes to Nicaea but does not give a detailed conciliar dossier; the focus is on Constantine’s role and piety rather than on Arius’ side of the story or on the Arian interpretation of the creed.	Big Nicaea block F11–F14: “Way to Nicaea” and “Council of Nicaea” with petitions burned, dialectician converted, Paphnutius, Spyridon, and the fallout. The stance is explicitly pro-Nicene, a counter-narrative using much of the same anecdotal material.	Book 10, Rufinus’ continuation 10.1–6, presents the same dossier as Gelasius, including burning of petitions, dialectician, Paphnutius, Spyridon, creed and canons, but firmly anti-Arian. Same story-complex, opposite evaluative spin.	Socrates 1.8–10 gives a pro-Nicene narrative of Nicaea, with Eusebius of Nicomedia as a bad actor. The core constellation, Alexander versus Arius, imperial summons, creed, and exiles, overlaps Philostorgius, but the evaluation is inverted.
c. 328 (Alexander’s death and Athanasius)	Athanasius’ ordination is an Arian slander: he forces two Egyptian bishops, locked in a church, to consecrate him; others anathematize him; Alexander is made to look inconsistent and politically weak.	VC does not narrate Athanasius’ alleged “illicit” ordination; Athanasius appears simply as one of the Nicene heroes and defenders of the faith; the lurid consecration story is absent from the preserved text.	Athanasian-favorable fragments F18–F21 treat Athanasius as a Nicene champion, with fabricated accusations and appeals to Constantine. No trace of Philostorgius’ “forced ordination” legend or its hostile implications.	Rufinus 10.15 gives the “baptizing game” on the seashore; Alexander recognizes Athanasius as a new Samuel, nurtures him, and then he succeeds legitimately. This directly rejects, by omission and counter-narrative, Philostorgius’ ordination story.	Socrates, in 1.15 and related passages, sides with the Athanasian tradition: Alexander designates Athanasius, and his ordination is synodical and legitimate; the “locked church” tale is treated as Arian calumny rather than reliable history.
330 / 334 (Constantinople and Alexander)	Founding and dedication put in Constantine’s 28th year, glossed as 334; episcopal succession compressed so that on Alexander of Constantinople’s death, Eusebius of Nicomedia simply translates into the new see (I.9–10).	VC 3–4 celebrate Constantinople as Constantine’s “New Rome” but do not go into the detailed episcopal list that Philostorgius manipulates; it presupposes city and bishops but not his compressed succession.	Gelasius does not give an independent “foundation” story, but F22b and related material presuppose Alexander of Constantinople as a substantial figure resisting Arian pressure; the Vita Metrophanis et Alexandri is seen as dependent on this richer dossier.	Rufinus 10.12–14 presents Alexander of Constantinople as a real bishop embattled with Eusebius of Nicomedia; the Arius episode is set in Constantinople before Alexander’s death. Same players as Philostorgius, but with a much richer, anti-Arian configuration.	Socrates programmatically corrects the succession: Metrophanes → Alexander → Paul → Eusebius of Nicomedia; he dates the dedication of Constantinople to 330. Same node as Philostorgius but re-dated and de-compressed.
c. 336–337 (Arius, Constantine, sons)	Emphasis on Arian rehabilitation under Constantine’s later years and into Constantius; the Alexander-prayer and latrine-death story is marginalized or coloured in an Arian-friendly way. Philostorgius also says Eusebius “brought down his history to the period when Constantine was succeeded by his sons” (I.2).	VC 4 ends with Constantine’s illness, baptism by Eusebius of Nicomedia, death, and the initial division among his sons. It provides exactly the biographical frame Philostorgius assumes when he speaks of Eusebius’ endpoint, but without Arian triumphalism.	F22 and F22b give the Alexander-prayer and latrine-death story for Arius but rubric it “early in the reign of Constantius.” Content overlaps the Socrates and Rufinus dossier, but the dating is shifted in an Arian-chronographic direction closer to Philostorgius’ pattern.	Rufinus 10.12–14 preserves the fullest Latin version of the Constantia-presbyter story, Arius’ apparently orthodox creed, Alexander’s all-night prayer, and his death in the latrine. This is a decisive miracle under Constantine, not a Constantius-only affair, and explicitly part of his continuation beyond Eusebius.	Socrates 1.25–26: Arius is about to be readmitted at Constantinople; Alexander prays; Arius’ bowels pour out in the privy; Alexander dies soon after; only later does Eusebius of Nicomedia get the see under Constantius. Same story-complex as Rufinus, firmly dated within Constantine’s lifetime.
“Extent” of Eusebius’ history	Philostorgius’ programmatic statement: Eusebius’ history ran “down to” the point when Constantine was succeeded by his sons. Later readers mine this as evidence for a longer HE, possibly Arian-leaning, that extended beyond the surviving Greek text.	VC 4’s endpoint, Constantine’s death and division among his sons, offers an obvious Eusebian anchor that Philostorgius could be reading together with HE as a single “history of the Church and of Constantine” down to that hinge moment.	Gelasius’ preface says he will narrate the things that happened after Eusebius and the things Eusebius did not record, but his fragments show him restarting from Diocletian and Constantine and extending through Valens; the combined codex “Eusebius plus Gelasius” thus runs as far as Philostorgius says.	Rufinus’ preface is explicit: HE 10 in Greek had “little history” and mostly panegyrics; he fuses the historical bits into his book 9 and then composes books 10–11 on his own, from Constantine after the persecution to Theodosius. His exemplar of HE proper still ends before the Arian conciliar cycle.	Socrates 1.1: Eusebius HE ends with Constantine’s victory over Licinius and the peace of the Church. Socrates presents his work as the continuation, but his corrections to Rufinus right after Constantine’s death show how contested this “Eusebian boundary” really was.
Shifted placements versus Philostorgius’ scheme
330 vs 334 (Dedication of Constantinople)	Assigns founding and dedication to Constantine’s 28th year, glossed specifically as 334, and combines it with the compressed episcopal succession that favors the Arian narrative.	Celebrates the new city of Constantine but does not nail down a competing date; the panegyric is compatible with either 330 or 334 and avoids precision that would contradict Philostorgius directly.	Presupposes the city and its bishop Alexander, but gives no explicit dating rubric that would directly confront Philostorgius’ “28th year” or his choice of 334 as the key chronographic anchor.	Narrates Alexander, Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Arius at Constantinople without pinning a specific year, effectively floating between the competing chronologies and leaving the date open to interpretation.	Explicitly dates the dedication to 330 and gives a corrected episcopal succession list. This is the clearest case where a later orthodox historian moves Philostorgius’ chronological anchor back by several years.
Arius’ death: Constantine vs Constantius	Stresses Arian rehabilitation at the end of Constantine’s reign and into Constantius, tends toward placing the key crisis in Constantius’ horizon rather than Constantine’s, and does not foreground the Alexander-latrine miracle as decisive.	VC 4 stays with Constantine’s final illness and death, not with Arius’; it leaves room for later writers to attach Arius’ end either to Constantine’s last year or to Constantius’ early reign without contradiction.	F22 and F22b explicitly rubric the Alexander-latrine death of Arius “early in the reign of Constantius,” even while narrating the same miracle story as Rufinus and Socrates. Here Gelasius clearly moves the event out of Constantine’s lifetime.	Places the Constantia-presbyter episode, Alexander’s vigil, and Arius’ latrine death firmly under Constantine, just before his own death, and treats it as a divine judgment that precedes the full Constantius phase and later struggles.	Also puts the Alexander-latrine story under Constantine, before Alexander’s own death and before Eusebius of Nicomedia’s accession to Constantinople. Thus Socrates and Rufinus together represent the “under Constantine” dating, against the Constantius tendency.