CHAPMAN, JOHN HENRY PALMER. - English Benedictine historian and critic, born at Ashfield (Suffolk) on April 25, 1865, died in London on November 7, 1933. Having converted from Anglicanism (1890) not without the influence of Oxford, he became a Benedictine in the Congregation of Beuron (at Maredsous, 1892), and transferred in 1919 to the English Congregation. He served as superior at Erdington (1895-1912) and at Caldey (1913-14), and as abbot at Downside (1929-33). He carried out intense literary activity, collaborating on various periodicals and encyclopedias. He distinguished himself for his competence in patrology and ecclesiastical history: Bishop Gore and the Catholic Claims (London 1905); Studies in the Early Papacy (ibid. 1928); St. Benedict and the Sixth Century (ibid. 1929). His preferred field was the Bible: textual criticism.
In Notes on the Early History of the Vulgate Gospels (Oxford 1908) he revealed qualities that earned him appointment as a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Vulgate (1913). Among his Roman activities, together with H. Quentin (1919-22), mention should be made of The Families of Vulgate MSS in the Pentateuch (in Revue bénédictine, 37 [1925], pp. 5-46, 365-403). He also dealt with the Johannine origin of the Fourth Gospel (John the Presbyter and the Fourth Gospel, Oxford 1911) and the synoptic question (posthumous work, London 1937): Matthew, Mark and Luke. A Study in the Order and Interpretation of the Synoptic Gospels (priority of Greek Matthew!).
In his final years he turned to the problems of the spiritual life: Contemplative Prayer, in Pax of Caldey, 5 (1913), pp. 339-44; Mysticism (Christian, Roman Catholic), in Enc. of Rel., IX, pp. 90-101; The Spiritual Letters (London 1935).