Paul Guillaumier (The Sunday Times, November 4) presented a reasonably documented article about Publius, the Prince of Malta. Unfortunately he was very selective in his references.

He completely ignored the "Acts of Peter and Paul", which although an apocryphal book, is not belittled in any way by the Catholic Encyclopaedia. This work is the only source that narrates the martyrdom of the two apostles. The Acts state that Paul had sailed from Gaudomeleta, an obvious reference to the two islands of Gozo and Malta. Paul, described as being completely bald, arrived in Syracuse in April/May (He was in Syracuse on May 20).

The late Prof. Andrew Vella OP was a close friend of mine. In the '70s, through the popular children's programmes (during the period when I was solely responsible for them) I had encouraged Fr Vella to continue his work and, with his students, started to read the history of Malta on the radio on the programme. Unfortunately, Fr Vella missed two very important points, namely the Acts of Peter and Paul and the mess-up created by Dionysius Exiguus (470-544 AD) when he "invented" the Anno Domini.

It must be said that the feud between Valletta and Floriana only escalated after Floriana became an independent parish. Was it because the Valletta parish was going to lose some income? Until, say, 50 years ago, many in Floriana used to have the greatest affinity with Valletta's St Paul's church.

Some recognised Doctors of the Church, such as the Venerable Bede, are used and believed only when it suites one's purpose but not when there could be the slightest bias.

There is absolutely no tangible proof that Publius of Malta was not the same Publius of Athens. What is claimed to be the exaggerated age of Publius is easily understood by the lack of proper transposition of the dates as caused by Exiguus and other first millennia historians. A number of contemporaries of the first and second century had lived to the ripe age of 90 or even 100.