Saint Publius (; ), also known as Publius of Malta or Publius of Athens, was an early Christian bishop and

saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...

. He is considered the first Bishop of Malta and one of the first

Bishops of Athens A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of dioceses. The role ...

. Publius is

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

's first canonised saint, who is described in the

Book of Acts The Acts of the Apostles (, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; ) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of The gospel, its message to the Roman Empire. Acts and the Gospel of Luke make u ...

as the 'chief' or prince of the island (). According to Maltese Christian tradition, Publius' conversion led to

being the first Christian nation in the West. He is venerated in the

Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, and also called the Greek Orthodox Church or simply the Orthodox Church, is List of Christian denominations by number of members, one of the three major doctrinal and ...

and

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

, with feast days on 13 March and 22 January respectively.

History and tradition

According to Christian tradition, it was Publius who received

Paul the Apostle Paul, also named Saul of Tarsus, commonly known as Paul the Apostle and Saint Paul, was a Apostles in the New Testament, Christian apostle ( AD) who spread the Ministry of Jesus, teachings of Jesus in the Christianity in the 1st century, first ...

during his

shipwreck A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. It results from the event of ''shipwrecking'', which may be intentional or unintentional. There were approximately thre ...

on the island as recounted in the

Acts of the Apostles The Acts of the Apostles (, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; ) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of The gospel, its message to the Roman Empire. Acts and the Gospel of Luke make u ...

. According to the Acts of the Apostles, Paul cured Publius'

dysentery Dysentery ( , ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications may include dehyd ...

-afflicted father. :''"In the vicinity of that place were lands belonging to a man named Publius, the chief of the island. He welcomed us and received us cordially as his guests for three days. It so happened that the father of Publius was sick with a fever and dysentery. Paul visited him and, after praying, laid his hands on him and healed him. After this had taken place, the rest of the sick on the island came to Paul and were cured. They paid us great honor and when we eventually set sail they brought us the provisions we needed."'' — Acts 28:7–10, New American Bible He was martyred around 125, during the persecution of Emperor

Hadrian Hadrian ( ; ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. Hadrian was born in Italica, close to modern Seville in Spain, an Italic peoples, Italic settlement in Hispania Baetica; his branch of the Aelia gens, Aelia '' ...

Legacy

Veneration

His feast is celebrated on 22 January in the

, which places him as the successor of Dionysius the Areopagite, dating his martyrdom to . Apart from being

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy or Oriental Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, fa ...

of Floriana, Publius is also one of the three patron saints of Malta, along with St. Paul the Apostle and St. Agatha of Sicily. In the

, however, his feast day is observed on

13 March Events Pre-1600 * 222 – Roman emperor Elagabalus is murdered alongside his mother, Julia Soaemias. He is replaced by his 14-year old cousin, Severus Alexander. * 624 – The Battle of Badr, the first major battle between the Mu ...

, and according to an epistle of Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, he is placed as the successor of Narcissus of Athens, dating his martyrdom to the period of the persecution under Marcus Aurelius ().

Namesakes

Various streets in Malta are named after him, including in Sliema,

Rabat Rabat (, also , ; ) is the Capital (political), capital city of Morocco and the List of cities in Morocco, country's seventh-largest city with an urban population of approximately 580,000 (2014) and a metropolitan population of over 1.2 million. ...

, Mellieħa, Saint Paul's Bay, Naxxar and Floriana.

Notes

References