In his short excerpt letter entitled The History Of Christianity (January 12), Karl Consiglio is apparently on the right track, except when he states that Christianity was probably introduced to Malta by the Spaniards - this would mean the Catalans from Barcelona from 1283, and the joint royal Spanish crown with the Castilians in 1474, until Charles V passed Malta, Gozo and the castle of Tripoli to the Knights of St John in 1528-1530.
The last point of decisive Spanish religious influence is clearly not correct. There is evidence of Christian burial in Malta from the end of the 4th century AD, possibly around 380. With the edict of Milan in 313 by Constantine I and Licinius, Christian roots were slowly established in Malta, probably from Sicily, and there is increasing evidence of Christian burials. After the Vandal and Goth hiatus, Christianisation was intensified under the Byzantines in the 6th century.
That the apostle Paul healed the governor Publius's father, and countless Maltese in 59-61 AD, is no proof that he converted either the Roman administrators of Malta or the Maltese themselves to Christianity, despite wishful thinking. People did not change their religion so easily, and less so under the Roman empire.
They probably worshipped the Phoenician gods Melqart, Baal, Astarte and Tanit, and the Roman emperor, Castor and Pollux, Minerva and Juno and several other Egyptian gods and goddesses, such as Isis and Serapis. Converting to Christianity at this early, rejected and persecuted stage bears the stuff of a leggenda cristiana, of which there are many.
Malta's first recorded bishop was not Publius the "protos" or senior man, nor is there any record that he became a Christian.
He has been mixed up with another Publius of Asia Minor, modern Turkey.
Luke-Acts nowhere describes the Maltese islanders, or the people of Syracuse in Sicily, or the people of Reggio Calabria as "brethren", meaning fellow Christians. This term is only used on Paul's arrival at Pozzuoli in the bay of Naples, then in Rome. The first recorded bishop of Malta was Lucillus in 553 AD (Buhagiar 2007). His accession may not have preceded, but followed the presence of Christians in Malta in the 6th century.
Prof. Mario Buhagiar had a book published in 2007 by Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK, selling at $112.50 and entitled The Christianisation Of Malta - Christian Catacombs, Cult Centres And Churches In Malta To 1530. This is probably the most scholarly work on this subject, even at such a late stage, to debunk mistaken theories, accepted by many as facts. The documented facts throw our Christian history in a different light.
We are no less Christian for that matter. Whether it was Paul who converted us Maltese to Christianity, or whether it was Sicilian monks is, in the end, next to immaterial.