CHAPMAN, JOHN

Benedictine historian and exegete; b. Ashfield, England, April 25, 1865; d. Downside, Nov. 7, 1933. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and took Anglican orders in 1889 but joined the Catholic Church in 1890. In 1892 he became a Benedictine at maredsous, and was ordained in 1895. He was master of novices and prior at erdington (1895–1912), superior at caldey (1913–14), and a chaplain in England, France, and Switzerland during World War I. After the war he worked on the commission for the Vulgate in Rome (1919–22), and became prior (1922) and then abbot (1929 to his death) of downside, to which he had transferred his residence in 1919. He contributed numerous articles on patrology and Church history for the Revue Bénédictine, the Dublin Review, the Catholic Encyclopedia, and the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. The most important of his early works are Notes on the Early History of the Vulgate Gospels (Oxford 1908) and John the Presbyter and the Fourth Gospel (Oxford 1911). He wrote several treatises on problems of the spiritual life and on mysticism. After his death his Spiritual Letters (London 1935) and Matthew, Mark and Luke (London 1937) were published; the latter argues that the Greek text of Matthew is earlier than that of Mark.

Bibliography: f. l. cross, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (London 1957) 264. g. r. hudleston, Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique. Doctrine et histoire, ed. m. viller et al. (Paris 1932—) 2:488–492. r. gazeau, Catholicisme 2:946–947.

[f. x. murphy]