John Chapman (priest)

Roman Catholic priest and Abbot of Downside Abbey

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "John Chapman" priest – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

|

The Right Reverend Dom

John Chapman

OSB

Abbot of Downside
Church| Catholic Church
Installed| 1929
Term ended| 1933
Predecessor| Leander Ramsay
Successor| Bruno Hicks
Previous post(s)| Abbot of Downside
Personal details
Born|

Henry Chapman

25 April 1865

Suffolk, United Kingdom

Died| 7 November 1933 (1933-11-08) (aged 68)
Downside Abbey, Stratton-on-the-Fosse, Somerset, United Kingdom
Buried| Downside Abbey
Nationality| British
Denomination| Roman Catholic
Alma mater| Christ Church, Oxford

John Chapman OSB (25 April 1865 – 7 November 1933) was an English Roman Catholic priest, the 4th Abbot of Downside Abbey of the English Benedictine Congregation from 1929 until his death, and a New Testament and patristics scholar.

He is best known for having founded one of the private schools in Britain: Worth, in West Sussex.

## Anglican background

[edit]

Henry Palmer Chapman was born in Ashfield, Suffolk, the son of an Anglican canon of Ely Cathedral. Because of delicate health, Henry was, at first, educated privately at home, and then later at Christ Church, Oxford (1883–1886), where he received a first-class degree in Classical Greats. He stayed for a subsequent year at Oxford studying theology, in which he took a third (cf. the "gentleman's C" in the U.S.).[1] It was an important year for him, however, because in this time he decided to be ordained in the Church of England.[2]

Having trained at Cuddesdon near Oxford, Chapman was ordained as a deacon in the Church of England in 1889 and began a curacy in the parish of St Pancras, London. He found himself increasingly troubled during this time about the position of the Church of England and left the parish soon after Trinity Sunday.[3]

Part of a series on

Christian mysticism

Theology and philosophy

* Apophatic
* Ascetical
* Cataphatic
* Catholic spirituality
* Hellenistic
* Mystical theology
* Neoplatonic
* Henosis

Practices

Monasticism

* Monasticism
* New
* Silence
* Asceticism
* Mendicant
* Spiritual direction

Meditation

* Meditation
* Lectio Divina
* Invoking of Mystic Saints

Active asceticism

* Contemplation
* Hesychasm
* Jesus Prayer
* Quietism
* Stages of Christian perfection
* Hesychia
* Divinization
* Catharsis
* Theosis
* Kenosis
* Spiritual dryness
* Religious ecstasy

Passive asceticism

* Abstinence

Esoteric

* Charismatic
* Esoteric

People (by era or century)

Antiquity

* Ancient African
* Origen
* Thomasines
* Gregory of Nyssa
* Pseudo-Dionysius

Desert Fathers

* Paul of Thebes
* Anthony the Great
* Arsenius the Great
* Poemen
* Macarius of Egypt
* Moses the Black
* Syncletica
* Athanasius
* John Chrysostom
* Hilarion
* John Cassian

11th · 12th

* Bernard of Clairvaux
* Guigo II
* Hildegard of Bingen
* Symeon the New Theologian

13th · 14th

|  Dominican

* Dominic de Guzmán

Franciscan

* Francis of Assisi
* Anthony of Padua
* Bonaventure
* Jacopone da Todi
* Angela of Foligno

English

* Richard Rolle
* Walter Hilton
* Julian of Norwich
* Margery Kempe

Flemish

* Beatrice of Nazareth
* Lutgardis
* Hadewijch
* John van Ruysbroeck

German

* Meister Eckhart
* Johannes Tauler
* Henry Suso

Female

* Beatrice of Nazareth
* Bridget of Sweden
* Catherine of Siena
* Mechthild of Magdeburg
* Marguerite Porete

15th · 16th

|  Spanish

* Ignatius of Loyola
* Francisco de Osuna
* John of Ávila
* Teresa of Ávila
* John of the Cross

Others

* Catherine of Genoa

17th · 18th

|  French

* Margaret Mary Alacoque
* Pierre de Bérulle
* Jean-Jacques Olier
* Louis de Montfort
* Charles de Condren
* John Eudes
* John of St. Samson

Others

* Mary of Jesus of Ágreda
* Anne Catherine Emmerich
* Veronica Giuliani
* Francis de Sales

19th

* Dina Bélanger
* Catherine Labouré
* Mélanie Calvat
* Maximin Giraud
* Bernadette Soubirous
* Conchita de Armida
* Luisa Piccarreta
* Mary of the Divine Heart
* Thérèse of Lisieux
* Gemma Galgani

20th

* Padre Pio
* Therese Neumann
* Marthe Robin
* Alexandrina of Balazar
* Faustina Kowalska
* Sister Lúcia of Fátima
* Edgar Cayce
* Simone Weil
* Alfred Delp
* Thomas Merton
* Charles de Foucauld
* Edvige Carboni
* Elena Aiello

Contemporary papal views

Aspects of meditation
(Orationis Formas, 1989)

Reflection on the New Age (2003)

Literature and media

* Lingua ignota
* Ordo Virtutum
* Scivias
* Ascent of Mount Carmel
* Dark Night of the Soul
* Spiritual Canticle
* Way of Perfection
* Book of the First Monks
* The Interior Castle
* Abbey of the Holy Ghost
* A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation
* From Willow Creek to Sacred Heart
* The Glories of Mary
* The Imitation of Christ
* The Ladder of Divine Ascent
* Philokalia
* Revelations of Divine Love
* The Story of a Soul
* Theologia Germanica
* Devotio Moderna
* Fatima in Lucia's Own Words
* Calls from the Message of Fatima
* The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima
* Sol de Fátima
* The Cloud of Unknowing
* On the Consolation of Philosophy
* The Mirror of Simple Souls
* Sister Catherine Treatise
* Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii
* The Vision of Adamnán
* Divine Comedy
* Inferno
* Purgatorio
* Paradiso
* Fatima

* v
* t
* e

## Conversion to Catholicism

[edit]

In December 1890, Chapman was conditionally baptized in the Catholic Church at Brompton Oratory. In April 1891 he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Manresa House, Roehampton (now Parkstead House), but decided to leave after eight months.[4]

He subsequently entered the Benedictine Maredsous Abbey in Belgium, where he had been preceded by a friend from Cuddesdon, Bede Camm. Chapman was given the religious name of "John", and professed simple vows on 25 March 1893. He made his solemn vows on Whitsuntide 1895. After his priestly ordination in 1895, he went to Erdington Abbey, near Birmingham, where he stayed until 1912, serving the community as novice master and later as prior.[5]

Having spent nine months at Maredsous, in February 1913 Chapman was made temporary superior of the Caldey island community (now based at Prinknash Abbey), when it was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1913–14.[5]

At the outbreak of World War I, Chapman became a Professor of Theology at Downside Abbey, joining the many monks who had fled Maredsous to England.[6] In early 1915, when these monks moved to Ireland, he became army chaplain to the British forces. After initial training, his brigade arrived in France in July 1915. He lived in the trenches in the autumn of 1915, until a persistent knee injury led to his hospitalization in November 1915. He was later stationed at Boyton Camp, Wiltshire, for several months, and then returned to France. At the end of 1917, he was transferred to Switzerland, where multilingual chaplains were needed for the POW camps. He remained there until the armistice.[7]

### 4th Abbot of Downside

[edit]

In 1919 Chapman transferred his monastic stability to Downside Abbey. He spent most of 1919 to 1922 in Rome, though, working on a commission on the revision of the Vulgate translation of the Bible.[8] He returned to Downside in 1922, where in 1929 the community elected him as abbot.[5]

As the fourth abbot of Downside, during his short term of four years, he helped transform Downside into a modern abbey in the mainstream of the Benedictine tradition and in 1933 became the founder of Worth Priory (which became independent of Downside in 1957 and Worth Abbey in 1965).

### New Testament and patristics scholar

[edit]

John Chapman not only read both Greek and Latin with facility, but also read and wrote French, Italian, and German. Many of his contributions to biblical scholarship and patristics have proved of lasting value, especially his work on Cyprian, John the Presbyter, and on the priority of the Gospel according to Matthew that, so Chapman argued in support of the early Church tradition, was the first Gospel account to have been written (see also Synoptic Problem).

Among the novices that Chapman clothed in the monastic habit was in 1932 John Bernard Orchard, who soon felt drawn to follow his Abbot into researching the priority of the Gospel according to Matthew in the light of the patristic evidence, and eventually, after also constructing a synopsis of the four Gospel accounts in Greek and English for the easier study of the compositional sequence Matthew-Luke-Mark-John that is supported by certain early Christian writers, produced what by hindsight may be considered a synthesis of his and his mentor's insights.

### Spiritual director

[edit]

In his day Chapman was a much sought-after spiritual director. He published a collection of letters under the title Spiritual Letters.

## Works

[edit]

Chapman made a number of contributions to the Catholic Encyclopedia on the Early Church Fathers and Councils.[9]

* St Irenaeus and the Dates of the Gospels, JTS 6 (1904-5): 563–9.
* Notes on the Early History of the Vulgate Gospels, Oxford 1908.
* John the Presbyter, Oxford 1911.
* St Paul and the Revelation to St Peter, Rev. Ben. 29 (1912): 133–47.
* Studies on the Early Papacy (1928, repr. 1971).
* Spiritual Letters, posthumously, London 1935.
* Matthew, Mark, and Luke, posthumously (ed. J. M. T. Barton), London 1937.
* The Condemnation of Pope Honorius (London, Catholic Truth Society, 1907).

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Henley, Jon (5 July 2012). "Don't judge a job applicant by their degree". The Guardian.
2. ^ Hudleston, Roger (1938). "A Memoir of Abbot Chapman". The Spiritual Letters of Dom John Chapman OSB. London: Sheed and Ward. p. 3.
3. ^ Hudleston 1938, p. 5.
4. ^ Hudleston 1938, p. 8.
5. ^ a b c Rees, Daniel (2013). "Chapman, John (1865-1933)". In William M. Johnston (ed.). Encyclopedia of Monasticism. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-78715-7.
6. ^ Hudleston 1938, p. 13.
7. ^ Hudleston 1938, p. 14.
8. ^ Hudleston 1938, p. 15.
9. ^ The Catholic Encyclopedia and Its Makers. Encyclopedia Press, Incorporated. 1917.

## External links

[edit]

* "St. Cyprian on the Church and the Papacy"
* "The Condemnation of Pope Honorius"

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF
* FAST
* WorldCat

National|

* Germany
* United States
* France
* BnF data
* Netherlands
* Sweden
* Vatican
* Israel
* Belgium

People|

* Trove
* Deutsche Biographie

Other|

* IdRef
* SNAC

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template