Books by Peter Jeffery

In 1958, Bible scholar Morton Smith announced the discovery of a sensational manuscripta second-century letter written by St. Clement of Alexandria, who quotes an unknown, longer version of the Gospel of Mark. When Smith published the letter in 1973, he set off a firestorm of controversy that has raged ever since. Is the text authentic, or a hoax? Is Smiths interpretation correct? Did Jesus really practice magic, or homosexuality? And if the letter is a forgery . . . why?Through close examination of the discovered manuscripts text, Peter Jeffery unravels the answers to the mystery and tells the tragic tale of an estranged Episcopalian priest who forged an ancient gospel and fooled many of the best biblical scholars of his time. Jeffery shows convincingly that Smiths Secret Gospel is steeped in anachronisms and that its construction was influenced by Oscar WildesSalom, twentieth-century misunderstandings of early Christian liturgy, and Smiths personal struggles with Christian sexual morality.

Comparative studies of medieval chant traditions in western Europe, Byzantium and the Slavic nations illuminate music, literacy and culture.

A Chant Historian Reads Liturgiam Authenticam

From the 6th to the 10th century, Gregorian chants existed only in song as medieval musicians relied on their memories and voices to pass each verse from one generation to the next. This work examines how these melodies were created, memorized, performed and modified.