MELITA an island in the Mediter ranean, on which the ship which was conveying St. Paul as a prisoner to Rome was wrecked, and which was the scene of the interesting circumstances recorded in Acts xxvii. xxviii.
Melita was the ancient name of Malta, and also of a small island in the Adriatic, now called Meleda, and each of these has found warm advo cates for its identification with the Melita of Scrip ture. The received and long-established opinion is undoubtedly in favour of Malta ; and those who uphold the claims of Meleda are to be regarded as dissenting from the general conclusion. This dis sent proceeds chiefly upon the ground that the ship of St. Paul was driven about in (the sea of) Adria,' when wrecked on Melita. The conclusions deducible from this strong position are vigorously stated by P. Abate D. Ignazio Giorgi, in his lnspezione Anticritiche, published at Venice in 173o, and which then attracted considerable atten tion. There is a curious account of the contro versy to which this gave rise in Ciantar's edit. of Abela's Malta Illustrate, i. 609, seq. The view thus advocated was in this country taken up by the learned Bryant, and more lately by Dr. Falconer, in his clever Dissertation on St. Paul's Voyage, 1817. These writers do not, however, seem to be aware of the very solid answers to this notion, and the arguments in support of the received conclu sions, which were produced at the time. There was nothing to answer but this one objection ; for if that could be obviated, the historical and other probabilities in favour of Malta remained in their former force, although they could have no counter vailing weight if the limitation of the name Adria to the gulf of Venice could be established. The course taken was, therefore, to show from ancient writers that the name Adria was not, in its ancient acceptation, limited to the present Adriatic Sea, but comprehended the seas of Greece and Sicily, and extended even to Africa. This seems to have been established beyond dispute, and every one acquainted with the mass of evidence brought to bear on this point, must regard the only strong argument in favour of Meleda as having been en tirely overthrown. Those who have any curiosity or doubt in the matter may find this evidence copiously produced in Ciantar's edition of Abela's work, and also in Wetstein. Abela, after dis posing of this part of his subject, very properly calls attention to the ample memorials of St. Paul's visit which exist in Malta, and the utter absence of any such in Meleda :—` Finalmente in Meleda non vi fu ma vestigio, o memoria di S. Paolo, non the Tempio ad onor di lui edifi cato ; ma sibbene nella nostra Isola vene sono molte memorie : anzi non v' e luogo, in cui non ci celebri it glorioso nome dell' Appostolo (Malta Illustrate, i. 6o8). He goes on to enumerate par
ticulars, which we will spare the reader, although the present writer's personal acquaintance with the island would enable him greatly to extend Abela's list of the Pauline associations which it contains. There is, perhaps, no piece of land of the same extent in the world which is made to contain refe rence so diversified and so numerous to any one person, as the island of Malta to St. Paul, who is, in fact, the tutelary saint of the island. These ap propriations of Pauline memorials may in detail be open to dispute, or may possibly all be erroneous, but they serve in the mass to indicate a current of opinion which may be traced back to a remote source in ancient times.
The name of St. Paul's Bay has been given to the place where the shipwreck is supposed to have taken place. This, the sacred historian says, was at a certain creek with a shore,' i.e., a seemingly practicable shore, on which they purposed, if pos sible, to strand the vessel, as their only apparent chance to escape being broken on the rocks. In attempting this the ship seems to have struck and gone to pieces on the rocky headland at the en trance of the creek. This agrees very well with St. Paul's Bay, more so than with any other creek of the island. This bay is a deep inlet on the north side of the island, being the last indentation of the coast but one from the western extremity of the island. It is about two miles deep, by one mile broad. The harbour which it forms is very unsafe at some distance from the shore, although there is good anchorage in the middle for light vessels. The most dangerous part is the western headland at the entrance of the bay, particularly as there is close to it a small island (Salamone), and a still smaller islet (Salamonetta), the currents and shoals around which are particularly dangerous in stormy weather. It is usually supposed that the vessel struck at this point. From this place the ancient capital of Malta (now Citta Vecchia, Old City) is distinctly seen at the distance of about five miles ; and on looking towards the bay from the top of the church on the summit of the hill whereon the city stands, it occurred to the present writer that the people of the town might easily from this spot have perceived in the morning that a wreck had taken place ; and this is a circumstance which throws a fresh light on some of the circumstances of the deeply interesting transactions which en sued.