(Πόπλιος)
Publius was the leading man of Malta at the time of St. Paul’s shipwreck there, when he hospitably entertained the shipwrecked party (Acts 28:7). His father, who was sick of fever and dysentery, was healed by the Apostle (Acts 28:8). The epithet ὁ πρῶτος, ‘the chief man,’ seems to have been an official title peculiar to Malta (cf. Ramsay, St. Paul, 1895, p. 343). The form ‘Poplios’ may be either the Greek popular equivalent for the Roman praenomen Publius or the Greek rendering of the nomen Popilius. Ecclesiastical tradition makes him the first bishop of Malta.
W. F. Boyd.