# John Chapman (priest)

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

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.). It was an important year for him, however, because in this time he decided to be ordained in the Church of England.
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.
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 viewsAspects 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 :
vte :

## Conversion to Catholicism

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.
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.
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.
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. 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.

### 4th Abbot of Downside

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. He returned to Downside in 1922, where in 1929 the community elected him as abbot.
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

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

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

## Works

Chapman made a number of contributions to the Catholic Encyclopedia on the Early Church Fathers and Councils.
* 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).