Eusebius of Caesarea and His Early Continuators

Abstract

The fourth-century bishop and scholar Eusebius of Caesarea established the genres that would shape subsequent Christian histories for generations. The present chapter seeks to situate the Lost Arian History within this historiographical context by revisiting Eusebius and his historical writings and by identifying his earliest known continuators. In so doing, we can better understand the models that likely inspired the Lost Arian Historian and how it is that other sources, not included in Bidez’s reconstruction, may echo this lost work.

The fourth-century bishop and scholar Eusebius of Caesarea established the genres that would shape subsequent Christian histories for generations. The present chapter seeks to situate the Lost Arian History within this historiographical context by revisiting Eusebius and his historical writings and by identifying his earliest known continuators. In so doing, we can better understand the models that likely inspired the Lost Arian Historian and how it is that other sources, not included in Bidez’s reconstruction, may echo this lost work.¹

1 The Legacy of Eusebius of Caesarea

The many scholarly writings of Eusebius of Caesarea established the bishop as one of the key intellectual figures of the Constantinian-era church, and his pioneering Chronicle and Ecclesiastical History each promoted a genre that inspired subsequent Christian authors.² Born c. 255, Eusebius likely spent most of his life in Caesarea, and it was there that he became a student of Pamphilus of Berytus (c. 250–311). The latter’s vast collection of books and admiration for Origen (c. 185-c. 254) strongly influenced Eusebius’ formation, but their bond was more than that of a student and teacher. Eusebius’ friendship with Pamphilus ran deep, and he even incorporated his mentor’s name into his own.³ The two collaborated on academic projects until the latter’s martyrdom in 311. Pamphilus’ death came toward the end of the Great Persecution that Diocletian had commenced in 303 and which continued almost unabated in the Eastern Roman Empire until 313. Though Eusebius obviously did not suffer martyrdom during this period, he knew many who did, and later composed a testament to their triumph in the face of adversity.

Not long after the persecution ended, Eusebius became the bishop of Caesarea, a position he held until his death in 339.⁴ His years as leader of Caesarea’s Christian community were far from uneventful. True, the threat of Roman execution had ended, but the controversy over Arius’ teaching forced the bishop to navigate the debates during and after the Council of Nicaea. Eusebius himself subscribed to a subordinationist theology, but he typically refrained from the more aggressive promotion of “Arianism” that characterized the activity of others, such as Eusebius of Nicomedia.⁵ Instead, the bishop of Caesarea devoted much of his energy to intellectual pursuits and completed or revised a number of works that celebrated the dawning era of Christian Rome. Of all the writings of the prolific Eusebius, three are particularly relevant to the current study: his Chronicle, Ecclesiastical History, and Martyrs of Palestine.⁶

The Chronicle was the first of these historical works to be completed, Eusebius probably finishing the first edition while in his twenties.⁷ He divided this composition into two books. Book I, entitled Chronography, included his preface and a number of chapters describing his sources. According to the preface, Eusebius sought to provide an accurate reckoning of the histories of various societies, including those of the Jews, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans. The events and persons of these different cultures he promised to align chronologically with each other using their own sources. His commentary on these texts, provided in separate chapters, comprised the bulk of Book I, which, in consequence, acted as a lengthy introduction and annotated bibliography to the material that Eusebius presented in Book II.

This second part, the Chronological Tables or Canones, presented his efforts to reconcile the various sources outlined in the Chronography.⁸ The tables he designed associated the rulers of a given era with notable figures or events that coincided with that ruler’s reign.⁹ Eusebius began his reckoning with the birth of Abraham, which coincided, according to his Chronicle, with our 2016 BC, and he used this “Year of Abraham” and the Greek four-year Olympiad cycle as a method to align the panoply of events and reigns he intended to include. The number of columns and rulers for a given year increased or diminished as the development or decline of the various cultures dictated. Despite various flaws in its reckoning, Eusebius’ Chronicle was an achievement insofar as it offered a comprehensive picture of human history.¹⁰ As we saw in the previous chapter, many later Christian chroniclers adopted this universal approach and attempted to incorporate into one whole both the secular and the ecclesiastical events of their period.

The influence of Eusebius’ Chronicle can be understood, ironically, from the fact that only fragments of the original survive. Greek authors not only embraced Eusebius’ method of presenting world events, they also absorbed Eusebius’ Chronicle into their own continuations. Their appropriation of Eusebius’ work explains why his Chronicle failed to survive in its original Greek form; it was too useful to continuators to leave untouched or unincorporated. Rather, our best witnesses to Eusebius’ original text come from translations: Jerome’s Latin translation of Book II and an Armenian translation that preserves almost entire both Books I and II.¹¹

Eusebius emended his historical works throughout his life. For example, the Chronicle originally ended with the equivalent of our year AD 279, but he later produced a second edition that brought the work up to the year 326. (It was this second edition that Jerome adapted and expanded in his own Chronicon.) Eusebius’ second historical work important for the present study, that is his Ecclesiastical History, likewise underwent different editions during the years from c. 295–326.¹² The first edition was divided into seven books and was probably completed around 295.

The Ecclesiastical History attempted to accomplish a task that had no immediate parallel among Christian writings. There had been no narrative history of Christianity’s development since the Acts of the Apostles, and the models bequeathed by pagan historians seemed to undermine the very thought of such a project. What great rulers or wars, both of which were the standard compositional fare for ancient historiography, could a Christian historian celebrate and use as a chronological framework? The immediate success of the Ecclesiastical History, and part of what ensured its long line of readers throughout the ages, derived from the answer Eusebius gave to this crucial historiographical question: He framed his narrative of church history as the “combat” which the Christian community waged against both internal discord, that is, schisms and heresies, and external threats from Rome’s polytheist populace.¹³

Among the physical perils faced by Roman Christians in the early fourth century, none were more significant than the Great Persecution. After it came to an end in 313, Eusebius took steps to expand his Ecclesiastical History with another edition. He had already composed his Martyrs of Palestine, a gripping testament to those from that region and elsewhere who had suffered during this most recent period of violence. This account provided its readers with a chronological framework that noted various edicts and the reigns of the different emperors and even included personal observations.¹⁴ He also lingered at times on the tortures and suffering apparently inflicted by God on offending Roman officials, a theme of retribution that he shared, though to a lesser degree, with his contemporary Lactantius.¹⁵

Eusebius eventually wrote three different narratives of the Great Persecution, two of which served as sections in editions of his Ecclesiastical History. He initially edited and condensed the first edition of Martyrs of Palestine, the so-called long recension, into a shorter edition, appropriately known as the short recension.¹⁶ This briefer narrative he introduced in 313 or 314 as Book 8 of his Ecclesiastical History. In this edition of his narrative, Eusebius updated Book 7 to its present form so that it would serve to introduce the Great Persecution of Book 8, and he composed Book 9. However, shortly thereafter, around 315, Eusebius decided to alter his account of the persecution once more. This third version of the martyr narrative replaced the short recension and is by far the shortest and the least dramatic form of Book 8. Why precisely the historian decided to excise much of the human interest and personal touches in his Martyrs of Palestine for the final Book 8 remains a mystery, though it is possible that he hoped to preserve the academic, detached tone of the previous seven books of the Ecclesiastical History.¹⁷ Unfortunately for the reader, the emotional impact of the original Martyrs of Palestine is lost in this final telling of the persecution.

Eusebius continued this trend of less-than-satisfying content with Books 9 and 10, which concluded the Ecclesiastical History’s narrative. Despite the dramatic events of the first quarter of the fourth century, the last book of his history focuses the reader’s attention on a long sermon by Eusebius himself on the occasion of a church dedication at Tyre in 315. A perfunctory description of Constantine’s defeat of Licinius and the promise of future peace for Christians within the Roman world follows this sermon. Eusebius clearly wished to avoid mentioning the disagreements that arose among Christian communities in the fourth century, a void that his historiographical successors attempted to fill.¹⁸

Eusebius’ legacy is difficult to overestimate. Despite the shortcomings of the Chronicle, the Ecclesiastical History, and the two later versions of the Martyrs of Palestine, Eusebius set the parameters of Christian historiography that many followed for centuries. While the specific genre of the Lost Arian History has been subject to debate, scholars assume that the writer consciously emulated in some fashion the historiographical foundations laid by the bishop of Caesarea.¹⁹

2 Eusebius’ First Continuators

A number of fourth- and fifth-century authors continued Eusebius’ historical works by updating them with material from subsequent decades.²⁰ The previous chapter already introduced Jerome’s Chronicon, which continued Eusebius’ chronicle to 378. Several decades later, two Alexandrian monks also incorporated and expanded the content of Eusebius’ Chronicle. The first, Panodorus, composed a chronicle that offered a timeline from the Creation to the death of Arcadius in 408. Panodorus evidently criticized Eusebius for making the life of Abraham his point of departure rather than the creation of the world. To supply information prior to Abraham’s life, Panodorus used the Bible, the Egyptian chronicler Manetho, and the Mesopotamian chronicler Berossus. A second monk, Annianus, apparently revised Panodorus’ account, making it briefer and updating its content to the year 412 with the death of Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria. Annianus disagreed with some of Panodorus’ conclusions and altered his dates of both the Creation and the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.²¹ Though both of these chronicles are lost, the Chronography of George Syncellus, discussed in Chap. 2, preserves excerpts and offers commentary on the two.²²

Some scholars propose that Gelasius of Caesarea (c. 335-c. 395) was the first continuator of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History.²³ We have only a few biographical details. He was the second bishop of Palestinian Caesarea after Eusebius and maternal nephew of Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386). Gelasius’ staunch support for the Council of Nicaea led to competition for his bishopric, and from 373 to 379 he was effectively replaced by the non-Nicene Euzoius. We know that during the subsequent Council of Constantinople in 381 Gelasius performed an act of piety by allowing his uncle Cyril to sign the canons before him, even though technically Caesarea was the metropolitan see over Jerusalem. Gelasius is generally thought to have died around 395, since we know that he was alive in 394 and dead by 401, when another is mentioned as bishop of Caesarea.

Among these few facts associated with Gelasius’ life is one that suggests that Cyril of Jerusalem encouraged his nephew to compose a narrative, an apparent continuation of the Ecclesiastical History written by Eusebius of Caesarea. Although an edition of conjectural fragments from this text has recently been published, the evidence that such a work existed is inconclusive, for there are no indisputable fragments surviving from the history itself.²⁴

Those who believe that Gelasius did write a history generally accept the arguments proposed by Friedhelm Winkelmann. He argues that Gelasius was not only the first to continue Eusebius’ narrative but also was a principal source for the subsequent histories of both Rufinus and Socrates.²⁵ Those who accept his arguments propose that Gelasius of Caesarea’s continuation formed an addendum to Eusebius’ account and covered the years from the persecution of Diocletian to some point in the 370 s—either the death of Athanasius or the death of Valens. Furthermore, they hold that Gelasius’ supplementary material soon became associated with a Greek translation of Rufinus’ Latin narrative of the reign of Theodosius I.²⁶

This position attempts to make sense of the cryptic notes pertaining to Gelasius found in the Bibliotheca of Photius. Photius mentioned Gelasius as an author several times, but he was unsure whether there were two—or even three—different individuals named Gelasius whose works he had read.²⁷ Photius’ Codex 88 records his notes on a narrative of the council of Nicaea. Photius apparently knew of two copies of this text: one that was anonymous, the other bearing the name Gelasius of Caesarea.²⁸ Since the text made it clear that this author was from Cyzicus and lived during the reign of Zeno (474–491), Photius concluded that there must have been a second “Gelasius” who lived a century after the nephew of Cyril.²⁹ (Since many modern scholars refer to this fifth-century author as the Anonymous of Cyzicus we will identify this author as Gelasius/Anonymous of Cyzicus.³⁰) Photius’ two other references to a “Gelasius of Caesarea” include his Codex 102, which discusses a treatise against the Heterousians, and Codex 89.³¹ The latter codex describes a work that clearly claims that the “bishop of Caesarea in Palestine” wrote a continuation of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History.³² However, Photius described its contents of as a “preface” (προοίμιον) and did not write an extended commentary on any accompanying narrative, presuming, of course, that he had access to it. Photius does, however, mention that this author identified himself as the maternal nephew of Cyril of Jerusalem, who encouraged Gelasius to write a history. He adds that this Gelasius’ style is superior to that of the fifth-century Gelasius/Anonymous in Codex 88 but inferior to the Gelasius who authored the work against the Heterousians in Codex 102. Photius’ continuing uncertainty regarding these Gelasii again becomes apparent when he expresses his ignorance as to whether the theological work of Codex 102 should be attributed to either of the previous two Gelasii or to a third.

More important than style, however, are two other details that Photius mentioned and which have generated scholarly debate regarding these codices and their referents. In Codex 89, Photius declared that he has learned from other sources that Cyril of Jerusalem and Gelasius of Caesarea translated the history of Rufinus into Greek. This is simply impossible. Rufinus, whom we discuss more below, wrote his continuation of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History around 402 or 403, years after the death of Cyril and likely after Gelasius’ death, too.³³ Photius muddied the waters even more in Codex 88 with his observation that the author of the narrative of the Council of Nicaea—that is, Gelasius/Anonymous of Cyzicus—attributed some of his material to “a certain Gelasius, whom he calls both Gelasius and Rufinus.”³⁴

Confronted by this confusing situation, Friedhelm Winkelmann suggests that Gelasius of Caesarea wrote an ecclesiastical history that later compilers combined with a Greek translation of Rufinus.³⁵ This proposal possibly explains the statement of Gelasius/Anonymous of Cyzicus regarding a source written by a “Gelasius-Rufinus”: The two works were now in a single volume, and Gelasius/Anonymous of Cyzicus simply mistook two distinct authors as multiple names for a single author. This could also explain how Photius’ had read elsewhere that Gelasius had translated Rufinus.

In contrast to Winkelmann’s position, Peter van Nuffelen argues that our understanding of Gelasius’ history and its relationship to Rufinus and Socrates is fundamentally skewed. These latter two are usually viewed as dependent upon Gelasius’ earlier narrative, but van Nuffelen champions the idea that Rufinus and Socrates deserve more credit for originality than has been typically given them since the publication of Winkelmann’s theory.³⁶ An independent study by Yves-Marie Duval buttresses van Nuffelen’s belief; according to Duval’s findings it is unlikely that Rufinus’ account relied on that of Gelasius, or any eastern source, for the narrative of the Council of Alexandria in 362.³⁷ Van Nuffelen goes even further: By his article’s end, he has concluded that Gelasius of Caesarea never in fact wrote an ecclesiastical history. What Gelasius/Anonymous of Cyzicus and others, such as Photius, encountered was a fifth-century compilation that incorporated Rufinus, Socrates, and the Life of Constantine by Eusebius of Caesarea and whose author/compiler attributed his amalgamation to Gelasius of Caesarea.³⁸ This explains, argues van Nuffelen, not only why there are parallels among the fragments of “Gelasius” and the texts of Socrates and Rufinus but also why it is that none of the other ecclesiastical historians identified him as one of their sources: Their narratives had been composed before “pseudo-Gelasius” had prepared his compilation.³⁹

Van Nuffelen’s meticulous work is convincing, at least in part. His thesis exploits the gaps in Winkelmann’s theory and shows that what has become a scholarly consensus fails to address several simple concerns. For example, according to Photius’ Codex 89 Gelasius wrote his Ecclesiastical History at the request of Cyril, who during his life had desired to promote his see of Jerusalem at the expense of Gelasius’ own see of Caesarea.⁴⁰ Gelasius complied with the deathbed request, and Winkelmann cites evidence of the nephew’s deference to the uncle from the Council of Constantinople as proof of Gelasius’ willingness to place his uncle before himself.⁴¹ This observation led to the assumption that any prominence given to Cyril and Jerusalem’s history—such as the story of the discovery of the True Cross—arose from Gelasius’ desire to emphasize his uncle’s see.⁴² Van Nuffelen rightly points out that at the time of Gelasius’ purported writing Cyril was dead.⁴³ Why would Gelasius’ narrative reduce the status of his own metropolitan see for the benefit of John, the current bishop of Jerusalem and not a relative? Furthermore, how can one attribute the negative view of Cyril that Rufinus expresses to Gelasius, Cyril’s dutiful nephew?⁴⁴ Why did Rufinus break with his presumed source material on this crucial theme?

In contrast to the established paradigm, van Nuffelen suggests that “Gelasius of Caesarea” was a pseudonym adopted out of practical considerations. According to his argument, a fifth-century “forger” (faussaire) desired to attribute his compilation of Socrates, Rufinus, and Eusebius’ Life of Constantine to a respected name rooted in triumphant orthodox theology. Van Nuffelen maintains that the historical Gelasius of Caesarea, a man of untarnished theology and a pro-Nicene bishop to the same diocese that Eusebius of Caesarea had overseen, served as a fitting persona for this fifth-century author.⁴⁵

Van Nuffelen’s proposed compilation answers some questions, but not all of his arguments are completely satisfying. He argues, for example, that Jerome’s failure to mention Gelasius’ Ecclesiastical History in his De viris illustribus of 392 undermines the possibility that such a history ever existed. He states that Jerome’s knowledge of the intellectual milieu of Palestine was too great to allow for such a gap, especially since Jerome knew of “other works” by Gelasius.⁴⁶ However, Jerome’s De viris reveals that the hermit actually knew very little about Gelasius’ intellectual efforts other than the fact that he was writing.⁴⁷ The idea that this bishop of Caesarea could pen an Ecclesiastical History without Jerome reading it is not far-fetched, especially since it seems Gelasius’ anti-Heterousian tract—noted in Photius’ Codex 102 and considered by all to be a genuine work by the bishop—was also apparently unknown to Jerome.⁴⁸ It is possible, of course, that Gelasius penned that tract after Jerome completed his De viris, though Jerome’s statement that Gelasius reputedly had written several works without publishing them makes it impossible to know one way or the other.

What is more, two recent studies on Gelasius’ Ecclesiastical History point out difficulties associated with van Nuffelen’s hypothetical “pseudo-Gelasius” compiler. In their edition of proposed Gelasian fragments, Wallraff, Stutz, and Marinides highlight some of the textual problems raised by the idea of a fifth-century compilation, and Wallraff’s independent article on Gelasius continues the critique through further textual evidence from Rufinus and by highlighting the lack of an obvious motivation for van Nuffelen’s proposed forger.⁴⁹

While we do not need to summarize their arguments in their entirety, it may be helpful to discuss further van Nuffelen’s claim that his hypothetical compiler adopted the name of Gelasius.⁵⁰ Van Nuffelen proposes that the “pseudo-Gelasius” sought an individual who predated Socrates and would thus have a claim to be original. Gelasius, van Nuffelen believes, is the perfect candidate: He is orthodox, lived before the fifth-century ecclesiastical historians wrote their works, and was even the successor to the same see as Eusebius of Caesarea.

Van Nuffelen believes that this attribution of the work to Gelasius of Caesarea would help the circulation of “pseudo-Gelasius’” work, but if the compilation merely combined elements of histories already available it seems that its circulation would be limited, unless it was associated with a more famous figure of the era. In other words, if a wider audience were his purpose, the compiler could surely have chosen a more prominent cleric from the fourth century, like Cyril of Jerusalem, whose name recognition would have been greater and whose intrinsic interest would have attracted more attention.⁵¹ While it is possible that the compiler wanted the association with the diocese of Caesarea, we lack a clear sense of what was to be gained for the forger himself by composing a purportedly original work that would be attributed, not to him, but to someone who had been dead for decades.⁵² The fundamental question of what ambition would motivate someone to attempt such a forgery on behalf of another remains unclear.

This hypothetical figure had either done his homework very well and, for example, knew that the vagueness of Jerome’s entry in De viris would assist his “forgery,” or he chose by chance a bishop whose biography possessed just enough detail to make the association plausible without offering too many details that could frustrate his deception. Either way seems too coincidental, especially considering the personal detail mentioned by Photius that Gelasius took up his pen at the behest of his dying uncle, a sentimental touch that resonates well with those aware of Gelasius’ act of piety at the Council of Constantinople.⁵³ For someone who allegedly compiled the works of others while failing to give them proper credit, van Nuffelen’s hypothetical forger impresses us with his research into a lesser-known person in ecclesiastical history. Why such laziness on the one hand and such industry on the other?

Van Nuffelen’s desire for a reevaluation seemingly arises from his indignation that Rufinus and Socrates have had their originality questioned.⁵⁴ Yet, there is a way in which the originality of Rufinus, Socrates, and even Gelasius can all be defended, for there is no contradiction between accepting van Nuffelen’s proposed fifth-century compilation and an original work by Gelasius of Caesarea.

Gelasius/Anonymous of Cyzicus’ references to Gelasius and Rufinus as a single individual are a convenient place to begin.⁵⁵ Van Nuffelen offers several hypotheses to address this issue, but none of them explains satisfactorily the connection between his “pseudo-Gelasius forger” and the name “Rufinus” within the text.⁵⁶ He suggests that a possible solution may be that the compiler of the Greek translation of Rufinus supplemented that text with “pseudo-Gelasius’” fifth-century narrative of Constantius I Chlorus and Constantine I. This theory, he admits, fails to explain how the name “Gelasius” came to be associated with the text.⁵⁷ Another explanation could be that “pseudo-Gelasius” translated and supplemented Rufinus’ text (which he acknowledged to be Rufinus’) with material covering the early career of Constantine I, presumably drawn from Eusebius of Caesarea’s Life of Constantine, which presents parallels and was perhaps not acknowledged by the “pseudo-Gelasius” to be from Eusebius. This latter suggestion, van Nuffelen believes, clarifies how the two names “Rufinus” and “Gelasius” could come to be identified closely, and he gives examples of other compilations where one name held for a time a dominant role even though other authors were included.⁵⁸

Unfortunately, van Nuffelen’s solution raises even more questions. He cites the examples of other compilations to support his idea that Photius and Gelasius/Anonymous of Cyzicus are actually referring to another such collection, but van Nuffelen also assumes that in this case the compilation in question intended to deceive its readers by claiming Gelasius of Caesarea as its author. Why admit that Rufinus’ text belonged to Rufinus while inventing an author for the material that belonged to others? This introduction of dishonesty seems pointless unless one adamantly desires to deny that Gelasius of Caesarea wrote a history. After all, the other compilations that van Nuffelen cites as examples came to be mistakenly attributed to a certain author alone because that author’s work was known to exist. Even when using van Nuffelen’s own illustrations, it seems that there was likely some historical work written by Gelasius. So why introduce the idea that someone plagiarized on behalf of someone else? Even if we accept this as a given, why is there the acknowledgment of Rufinus? Would that not merely reduce Gelasius’ prestige of being the first continuator of Eusebius that the “pseudo-Gelasius” purportedly desired, at least on behalf of Gelasius?⁵⁹

There seems to be a simpler solution: Gelasius/Anonymous of Cyzicus may have used a work that freely acknowledged the various sources from which it drew in a manner similar to the Tripartite History of Theodore Lector.⁶⁰ Van Nuffelen could thus be correct in his theory regarding the existence of a later compilation that brought together (and likely translated in Rufinus’ case) the works of Socrates, Rufinus, and Gelasius.⁶¹ The error would be in assuming that it was a work designed to deceive those who employed it.

This solution would address a number of questions raised by van Nuffelen’s theory. For example, if the historical bishop did write at the behest of his uncle, one can see how Cyril’s deathbed request could engender the erroneous belief centuries later that the two had collaborated in translating Rufinus: Subsequent sources encountered a single work that had Rufinus, Gelasius, and others all mixed in throughout and simply failed to realize that Cyril’s role in Gelasius’ history (as well as Gelasius’ history itself) was independent of any effort to translate Rufinus. This theory could also help explain why it is that the compilation is not extant. Much like Theodore’s Tripartite History, half of whose text survives only as an epitome, our proposed compilation of Gelasius, Rufinus, and Socrates may itself have quickly become epitomized, incorporated, or superseded by other historians until it became the obviously confused text read by Gelasius/Anonymous of Cyzicus.⁶² Gelasius’ original Ecclesiastical History—whatever form it took—probably did not survive independently for long but was rather incorporated into this later compilation that introduced his name but mixed his material with that of other, and from our perspective better-preserved, ecclesiastical historians. Photius appears to have seen the original introduction to Gelasius’ history, perhaps preserved in van Nuffelen’s proposed fifth-century compilation, but his brief epitome suggests that the text that followed the preface was unavailable to him. Perhaps, already by the fifth century confusion had irrevocably intertwined Gelasius with Rufinus and Socrates, leading subsequent scholars like Winkelmann to conclude that Rufinus and Socrates had somehow relied upon the narrative of Gelasius of Caesarea.

Why did this history of Gelasius not survive? Jerome’s reference to Gelasius’ hesitation to publish his writings appears to be a straightforward solution. Gelasius’ work probably only existed in a handful of manuscripts or perhaps only one preserved at the library of Caesarea. It would not be surprising for it be lost under such circumstances. Perhaps van Nuffelen’s fifth-century compiler encountered this manuscript and, by incorporating it into his collection Socrates’ and Rufinus’ accounts, ironically aided its lack of independent preservation by producing a text that others found more complete.⁶³

This brings us to the question of which historians may have employed Gelasius’ Ecclesiastical History as a source. Van Nuffelen rightly questions the assumption that Socrates chose to plagiarize—to use our modern concept—Gelasius: Socrates willingly bestowed credit on Rufinus and others as his sources, so it seems unlikely that he would ignore Gelasius.⁶⁴ Such a misleading, not to mention apparently random, manner of citing authors like Rufinus, Athanasius, and Sabinus of Heraclea while masking his reliance on Gelasius appears out of character for the otherwise candid Socrates. Wallraff’s counter-argument, while possible, fails to satisfy: “Socrates dealt with his predecessor [Gelasius] exactly in the same manner as later his successor Sozomen would later do with him: he is widely used, but not acknowledged. The best explanation is that Socrates (like parts of modern scholarship) attributed the priority to Rufinus.”⁶⁵ This could, perhaps, explain why Socrates did not cite Gelasius frequently, but it seems unlikely that Socrates would refrain from any mention at all of a source he relied upon. Even if we agree with Wallraff’s argument, it seems far more probable that Socrates, who included harsh judgments about the work of Philip of Side (EH, 7.27), would criticize Gelasius for “copying” Rufinus rather than suppress mention of him or his work entirely.

Socrates’ own openness regarding his sources makes it unlikely that he relied so greatly on Gelasius’ account and yet consciously left this useful text unacknowledged.⁶⁶ Van Nuffelen rightly desires to defend Socrates’ originality and honesty, but his conjecture that Gelasius never wrote an ecclesiastical history merely transfers the great deception: In protecting Socrates’ good name, van Nuffelen condemns a “pseudo-Gelasius,” a hypothetical compiler who used the bishop’s name merely as a covering for his own compilation of Socrates and others. Furthermore, though this “pseudo-Gelasius” would presumably have been unwilling to perform much or any research on his own account, van Nuffelen’s argument suggests either that he chose through blind luck a minor historical figure who left just enough biographical data to imply that he wrote a history or that the “pseudo-Gelasius” put effort into choosing a name that could advance the spread of his largely derivative account. Neither seems likely. Those historians from this era who did plagiarize did so in the apparent hope of personal gain.⁶⁷ To affix the name of a minor prelate from the previous century does not seem like a plausible method to ensure one’s own fame or success.

While much of the foregoing discussion remains conjectural, our proposed solution has the advantage of presenting an account of Gelasius’ Ecclesiastical History without resorting to the claim that someone was disingenuous. Furthermore, the above observations raise important questions about historians other than Socrates who may have had both the opportunity and the motive to incorporate Gelasius without acknowledging their dependency upon his work. As we will see, our later observations on Sozomen of Bethelea and Theodoret of Cyrrhus will have ramifications for both Gelasius’ history and for our understanding of who used the Lost Arian Historian.

An academically less controversial attempt to continue Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History came from the West. Around 402, the Italian monk Rufinus of Aquileia (c. 345-c. 410) completed a translation and continuation of Eusebius’ history.⁶⁸ His updated Latin text removed Eusebius’ original Book 10, which largely consisted of a historically unimportant sermon, and replaced it with Rufinus’ own, sometimes inaccurate, narration of events from the beginning of the “Arian” controversy c. 320 to the death of Julian the Apostate in 363. Rufinus’ Book 11 continued until the death of Theodosius in 395. Rufinus’ engaging style and accessibility to a Latin-speaking audience gave his continuation a longevity and independence that Gelasius’ work evidently did not enjoy.

In contrast to the success enjoyed by Rufinus’ continuation, the attempt of Philip of Side (c. 380-c. 435), a priest of Constantinople, failed to win an admiring readership. Philip’s Christian History comprised thirty-six volumes and presented a rambling collection of thoughts on history, philosophy, geometry, music, and other areas of learning without much consideration of chronology.⁶⁹ Indeed, both Photius and Socrates dismissed his narrative as pedantic and needlessly long. Perhaps his verbosity explains why so few copies were apparently made; nothing remains of his original save a few fragments and the complaints of critics.⁷⁰ Philip’s work may have had some connection to any number of the works mentioned here, including the Lost Arian History, but its scanty fragments do not enable us to speak with confidence either for or against such a relationship. For our purposes, Philip’s history is more important for what it inspired rather than what it did or did not accomplish in itself, for several years after its completion Socrates of Constantinople apparently decided that he could do better. To his Ecclesiastical History we now turn.