Saint Paul

`The shipwreck of St.Paul in 60 AD is recorded in some detail in the Acts of the Apostles, and a Pauline tradition of long standing supported by archeological excavations carried out at San Pawl Milqghi prove beyond doubt that his arrival in Malta is a historical fact and it is also a fact that during this three month stay on the island he sowed the first seeds of the Christian Religion to which Maltese people overwhelmingly belong, but inevitably, a number of legends have grown up over the centuries, but others not without a grain of truth.
The Apostle Paul was, at this time, being conducted to Rome under arrest to be judged before Caeser as was his right as a Roman Citizen. Amongst the other prisoners was the physician St.Luke who recorded the account of that eventful journey.
The nearest habitation to the place of shipwreck was the villa of Publius, the Chief Man of the Island. All those who had been shipwrecked spent three days there and after they had regained their strength they moved on to Melita the chief townof the island. In the city Paul cured Publius' father of a fever after which the Chief Man of the Island was converted to Christianity and later ordained Bishop by St.Paul.St.Publius was the first bishop of Malta. After three months, by which time, the sea was again reckoned to be safe for navigation, and loaded with gifts from his Maltese friends, Saint Paul sailed away to Rome and his subsequent martydom.
When the Roman Emperor Constantine embraced Christianity and made it the official religion of the Empire it may be assumed that Christian worship was better organisedand that a number of places assembly were built in various places of the islands. Tradition has it that one such church was built on the site of the palace of Publius, where St.Paul had cured the father of the Chief Man of the Island. Many times rebuilt, the site is now occupied by the Cathedral Church dedicated to Saint Paul at Medina.

An Empire in Decline

When the Roman Empire had been divided between the two sons of the Emperor Theodosius, Malta and its islands came under the Empire of the East which had its capital in remote Byzantium (modern day Istanbul). Very little is known of Maltese history regarding the four centuries starting from around the year 400 AD. This was the period of the break-up of the old Roman Empire, the time when Vandals and Goths carried all before themin Spain and in North Africa and, indeed, on the Italian mainland, the City of Rome itself was taken.The Byzantines, however, were more successful in warding off the attacks of the barbarians largely because of their powerful navy.
About the middle of the 6th century the lands under Byzantines dominations were organised into a series of military provinces or Themes.

The Arabs

The Arab attacks on the islands started from around the year 836 during which time Malta and its islands were still under Byzantine rule, but the islands were only overcome in the year 870 by Aglabid Arabs originating from what is now Tunisia who used Sicily as a springboard for their invasion, that island having been occupied by them some thirty years previously. To better protect their new territories the Moslems sectioned off a part of the old Roman town of Melita and defended it with a ditch, calling this citadel Medina, and did the same thing to the capital of the sister island, Gozo; the elite of the small number of Arabs then on the islands, probably dwelt in these towns but Arab villages were scattered on both islands; such as Bahrija in Malta (bahrija: Arabic for oasis) and the village of Gharb in Gozo (gharb: Arabic for West - the hamlet being the most westerly of the Maltese Islands).
The names of the two principal islands, Melita and Gaulos, were changed to Malta and Ghawdex and two of the smaller islands were named Kemmuna and Filfla, named after the cummin seed and pepper corn respectively.The Arabs introduced the water-wheel, the sienja, an animal-driven device for raising water, now obsolete, and, much more importantly, the cultivation of the cotton-plant, the mainstay of the Maltese economy for several centuries.