St. Paul's Shipwreck and Early Christianity in Malta

Abstract

Small islands have a need for a myth of national identity. The small Central Mediterranean archipelago of Malta, geographically located on the respective peripheries of Muslim North Africa and Christian Europe, has since the Late Middle Ages used the claim to be the site of the shipwreck of the apostle Paul in A.D. 60 (Acts 28) as a key argument for a Latin European identity. The fact that the islands had emerged from a traumatic Muslim experience made it psychologically imperative for them to trace their Christian roots to apostolic times. This study examines the validity of their claims and discusses the earliest known evidence for a Pauline tradition.

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