St Paul's Grotto, Malta, and its antidotic earth in the awareness of early modern Europe

Abstract

Christian shrines and places of cult are complex historical phenomena. Despite widely differing concrete manifestations with regard to time and place, the centres of cult exhibit surprisingly coherent conditions over a span of time reaching back to the world of Late Antiquity. As objects of research, Christian centres of cult cannot be isolated from their specific cultural and political contexts. This is also the case with St Paul's Grotto in Rabat, Malta. According to Maltese tradition, the Apostle Paul made use of this grotto during his Maltese sojourn in AD 60. In early modern times St Paul's Grotto became the most important cult centre on the island. Stone from the grotto - either in crude form or worked into terra sigillata - became a famous and treasured antidote against all sorts of poisoning. According to legend, this was due to the miracles St Paul worked in Malta. This contribution will not deal with the argument whether St Paul was really shipwrecked on Malta. This discussion has now gone on for at least a millennium, reaching a peak in the eighteenth century and being revived again in recent years. One wonders if definite proof can ever be obtained one way or another. It will focus on discussing in more detail the different approaches and the European perceptions of the Pauline Cult in Malta, especially the grotto of St Paul. Lack of authentic sources demands a broader perspective to find out how the cult of the grotto could emerge and reach such an international dimension, while the discussion on the Pauline cults in the Mediterranean will propose a new hypothesis as to how and when many aspects of the Pauline Cult in Malta reached the island and why the grotto became the centre of the cult.