Acts 28 recounts how Paul, being taken to Rome as a prisoner, was shipwrecked on an island the text names Melita, where the islanders showed the survivors unusual kindness and Paul healed the sick during a three-month stay. Malta is the island most widely accepted as that Melita, and the tradition is woven deeply into the nation's identity, celebrated each year in the Feast of St. Paul's Shipwreck. The area around St. Paul's Bay, together with the small St. Paul's Islands offshore, is the place local tradition marks as the landfall, and beneath Rabat lies St. Paul's Grotto, venerated as where the apostle lodged and preached. Honesty requires distinguishing the account from the sites: the shipwreck narrative is in Acts and Malta's identification is reasonable and long-standing, but the exact bay, the specific islands, and the grotto are traditional commemorations, not points fixed by archaeology. The oldest hard evidence of Christianity on the island — the Roman-era catacombs near Rabat — dates to centuries after Paul and attests an early community rather than the shipwreck itself.
- Where it is
- Malta (central Mediterranean)
- Scripture
- Acts 28:1-10