Malta #90

Malta is a small island in the central Mediterranean, south of Sicily. In Acts it is called Melita, and it is where Paul and his shipmates came ashore after a fourteen-day storm on the voyage from Caesarea to Rome (Acts 27:27; 28:1). The account of the wreck and of Paul’s stay is one of the most detailed sea narratives in ancient literature, written in the first person plural by Luke, who was travelling with Paul.

Biblical Significance

The storm began after the ship left Crete, and for many days neither sun nor stars appeared. Paul told the crew that an angel had assured him that no life would be lost, though the ship would be (Acts 27:20-26). On the fourteenth night, sailors sensed land nearby. As dawn came, they cut loose the anchors, ran the ship aground where two seas met, and the bow stuck fast while the stern broke apart under the waves (Acts 27:27-41). The soldiers planned to kill the prisoners, but the centurion, wanting to save Paul, stopped them, and all 276 people on board reached land safely, some swimming and others on planks (Acts 27:37, 42-44).

The islanders showed the survivors unusual kindness, lighting a fire in the rain and cold (Acts 28:1-2). Luke calls them “barbarians,” a Greek term for people who did not speak Greek. When a viper fastened on Paul’s hand, they expected him to die and called him a murderer, then changed their minds and called him a god when he suffered no harm (Acts 28:3-6). Paul then healed the father of Publius, the leading man of the island, who lay ill with fever and dysentery, and other sick people came and were cured (Acts 28:7-9). After three months on Malta, the group sailed on an Alexandrian ship marked by the figurehead of the twin gods Castor and Pollux, and continued through Syracuse and Rhegium to Puteoli and then on to Rome (Acts 28:11-14).

Today

Malta is now an independent republic. Tradition places the wreck at St Paul’s Bay on the northern coast, where a small island bears a statue of Paul, and honors the “St Paul’s Grotto” in Rabat as a place where he stayed. The identification with Malta was accepted from early Christian centuries, and a nineteenth-century study of the winds and currents by James Smith found the account fits St Paul’s Bay closely. A minority of scholars, following an older proposal, have argued for the Adriatic island of Mljet, but most hold to Malta. The Acts narrative is not dependent on the answer, since it names the destination as Melita.