The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and How It Died

by Philip Jenkins

Rather, these maps carried a higher truth: Jerusalem was the center of the world, the natural site for Christ’s act of self-sacrifice and redemption. (Timothy, of course, would have pushed the center of gravity still farther east!) These images also reflected a world in which Christianity had a strong presence across Asia and much of northern Africa.