Even long before the times of Jesus and the Apostle Paul, Malta was the rocky knob at the western edge of the Roman Empire, the place where the leftovers of the Mediterranean Sea washed up and dug in. Prehistoric worshipers left mysterious stone structures. Phoenician traders planted their alphabet and Arabic-inflected language. Greeks added new words and traditions. Sailing across the water the Romans grandly called "Mare Nostrum," "Our Sea," a rich Roman governor arrived to add a mosaic-floored villa on a wind-swept hill with a view of the island curved like a pelican's beak to catch the peoples and...