John Mason Neale

John Mason Neale ( born January 24, 1818 in London, † August 6, 1866 ) was an Anglican theologian, priest and writer.

Life

John Mason Neale was born as the son of Anglican clergyman Cornelius Neale and his wife Susanna, the daughter of the British physician John Mason Good. His name as well as his grandfather refer to the Puritan clergyman and hymn writer John Mason (1645-1695), descended from the Neale's mother. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge, and was ordained in 1842. He was offered a parish, but he had to turn down because of his frail health. Thus he became in 1846 head of Sackville College, a charitable organization in East Grinstead, and worked there until his death.

Already in Cambridge Neale had come with the Oxford Movement in contact and co-founded the Cambridge Camden Society, which later Ecclesiological Society was called.

In the spring of 1851 Neale learned on a trip to Utrecht know Johannes van Santen, the Dutch Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht. In October 1854 Neale spent again some time in Utrecht and conducted research in the Archbishop's archive., Which were included in his 1858 published book A History of the So-Called Jansenist Church of Holland.

Neale 1854 helped in the founding of St. Margaret sisterhood, an Anglican woman Order, who devoted himself to nursing and to this day is with the parent company in East Grinstead and a branch office in Sri Lanka.

Nine years earlier, John Henry Newman, one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement, a convert to Roman Catholicism. The followers of Anglo - Catholicism were therefore suspected of being agents of the Vatican, which should undermine the Anglican Church and lead to Rome. Many Anglicans were suspicious of anything that seemed Catholic. This suspicion now met Neale also why he was attacked after the funeral of one of the nuns. In England he was not observed, and the Ph.D. (Connecticut) was awarded to him by Trinity College in Hartford.

Neale was his life -minded High Church and earned so much opposition, even from his bishop, who suspended him for fourteen years by the priesthood. At times he was even threatened by unknown persons with stoning or burning down his house.

As a hymn writer Neale wrote several hymns, including the Advent hymn O come, O come, Emmanuel, the Otmar Schulz 1975 come as O, O come, thou Morgenstern (EC 19) translated into German.

Works

• A History of the So-Called Jansenist Church of Holland. Oxford 1858.
• O come, O come, Emmanuel. Hymn, 1851/1861

Remembrance

• Evangelical: 1 July in the calendar of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, together with the translator of hymns Catherine Winkworth, who died in a July 1.
• Anglican: August 7,