Antiquity
The first Jew known to have set foot on Malta was Paul of Tarsus, whose ship foundered there in 62 CE. Paul went on to introduce Christianity to the island population.
Greek inscriptions and menorah-decorated tombs indicate that Jews and early Christians lived on Malta during the 4th and 5th centuries. During the Fatimid rule of the island Jews often held posts as civil servants; one member of the community even reaching the highest possible rank, Vizier.
Read more about this topic: History Of The Jews In Malta
Famous quotes containing the word antiquity:
“How do you know antiquity was foolish? How do you know the present is wise? Who made it foolish? Who made it wise?”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)
“We gladly put antiquity above our age but not posterity. Only a father doesn’t begrudge his son’s talent.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“This seems a long while ago, and yet it happened since Milton wrote his Paradise Lost. But its antiquity is not the less great for that, for we do not regulate our historical time by the English standard, nor did the English by the Roman, nor the Roman by the Greek.... From this September afternoon, and from between these now cultivated shores, those times seemed more remote than the dark ages.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)