St Maximos the Confessor | The dark storm which befell St Paul is the weight of involuntary trials and temptations...

As I take it, the dark storm which befell St Paul (cf. Acts 28:1-4) is the weight of involuntary trials and temptations.

The island is the firm unshakeable state of divine hope. The fire is the state of spiritual knowledge. The sticks are the nature of visible things.

Paul gathered these with his hand, which I take to mean with the exploratory capacity of the intellect during contemplation. He fed the state of spiritual knowledge with conceptual images derived from the nature of visible things, for the state of spiritual knowledge heals the mental dejection produced by the storm of trials and temptations. The viper is the cunning and destructive power hidden secretly in the nature of sensible things. It bites the hand, that is, the exploratory noetic activity of contemplation, but without harming the visionary intellect; and this, with the light of spiritual knowledge, as if with fire at once destroys the destructive power that arises from the contemplation of sensible things and that attaches itself to the practical activity of the intellect.

St Maximos the Confessor