While wanting to pay tribute to the late Godfrey Wettinger for the solid contributions he made during his life to Maltese medieval history – place names, Jews, slavery, Cantilena and Maltese language, among others – I cannot but help endorse the sentiments expressed in Mgr Joseph. Farrugia’s letter (May 27) and comment on Joseph Grima’s reaction to this letter (June 4).

Mgr Farrugia was commenting on Jeremy Johns’ triumphant brandishing of Wettinger’s ‘vindication’ of his pet theory of discontinuity of Christianity in these islands. Johns’ arguments for this ‘vindication’ were twofold:

(i) a radical rereading of the relevant verses in my joint publication Tristia ex Melitogaudo; (ii) a harking back to the hackneyed argument of depopulation of these islands based on the Arabic texts of al-Himyari and Ibn Hawqal.

For Wettinger, the second argument that was made is pivotal: an ethnic break must mean a religious break.

Whereas rebutting the first requires a detailed philological argument, which is not suited to this forum (but which is being pursued for appropriate publication), the second has been soundly debunked in my joint paper (with Martin R. Zammit) recently read at an international conference whose proceedings will be duly published.

On this first point, in view of this and other arguments, Johns’ gratuitous assertion that the problem has now been “settled once and for all” is simply unacceptable. The question remains open to honest academic debate in the search for truth.

Coming to the second issue, there are many things I would rather have left unprinted, but, provoked by Grima’s letter, I have no option but to expose them.

Following my joint publication (with the late Mgr Joseph Busuttil and Horatio C.R. Vella) Trista ex Melitogaudo, which, naturally, did not at all go down well with Wettinger, the Malta Historical Society organised a public lecture, delivered by Wettinger, at Castile on December 7, 2010.

During question time after the lecture was delivered I raised my hand in an attempt to comment. However, I was brusquely shut up by the speaker.

The question remains open to honest academic debate in the search for truth

I did manage to put in a word edge-ways inviting him to an open debate on the subject but he refused the offer and would not even shake hands afterwards on the main steps of Castile.

The open debate was being organised by the Faculty of Theology at the Archbishop’s Curia on December 15, 2010. As Wettinger had refused the offer, Charles Dalli had been approached and accepted.

My contribution to that debate was the pamphlet Trista ex Melitogaudo Revisited, containing arguments rebutting Wettinger’s objections. To make the debate a meaningful one, a whole month in advance, I gave a copy of my text to Dalli. He, on the contrary, preferred to keep all his cards very close to his chest only to spring them in my face before a packed audience.

A close, detailed argument is not readily refuted so that the audience left the hall with the feeling (expressed by Grima) that “my theory was fallacious”.

A week after the lecture, Dalli did give me a copy of what he had said, which (like Grima) I am still waiting to see in print in order to pounce upon.

The publication Tristia ex Melitogaudo was a mammoth task that took 20 years to produce, being the editio princeps of a poem of 4,000+ verses, being seen for the first time. It is not perfect and I do not claim to have answers to all queries. However, a first rendition can be improved upon in later publications that will now have a decent text to work from. It can be treated from a variety of aspects.

Our choice was to present it as a ‘Maltese’ document as no foreigner will ever look at it from our point of view. As such, we thought it was worth presenting it for the annual Book Prize of that year in an appropriate category. To our great surprise and without any warning, the organisers decided to phase out the category of our choice for that year and, without informing us, placed the book with other coffee-table publications, with the obvious result. Two of the three arbiters were Dalli and Grima.

Stanley Fiorini is a senior research fellow and retired professor of mathematics at the University of Malta.