Drake notes the unique “democratic” flavor of the churcfh in the fourth century: “Christianity restored to common people an outlet for popular participation which they were denied in imperial politics. Eusebius [of Caesarea’s] awkward letter to his confregation from Nicaea, Constantine’s frequent letters to the Christians of Nicomedia, Alexandria, or Antioch – no matter how varied their format or contents, what the very existence of these letters testifies to first of all is the need of Christian leaders to justify their actions in a way that had long disappeared from other arenas of public life.”
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