Abstract
The author of the monograph, American David L. Eastman, is an expert in the field of early African Christianity currently working at Yale University.
His most recent work is entitled Early North African Christianity: Turning Points in the Development of the Church. The relatively thin book is structured into five parts, each with three chapters.
In the introduction, Eastman explains what Africa, the area of his professional interest, meant in the first decades of the existence of Christianity. It was certainly not the whole continent, nor the whole northern part of it; it was the northern coast of today's Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, which the Romans called Roman Africa or just Africa.
At that time, that designation did not include any area south of the Sahara, nor did Egypt, which was viewed separately. Before the Romans, this area was controlled by Carthage, which also gave the world some exceptional theologians.
After briefly defining the area, the author emphasizes that Christianity was present in Egypt and Roman Africa from the very beginning of its existence.