BERGIER, NICOLAS-SYLVESTRE. — French theologian and apologist, born at Darney (Lorraine) on 31 December 1718, died at Versailles on 9 April 1790. After taking his degree in theology at Besançon, he went to Paris to complete his studies. Recalled to the diocese, in 1748 he became parish priest of Flangebouche, and in 1764, after the suppression of the Jesuits, director of the college of Besançon. In 1769, at the invitation of the archbishop M. de Beaumont, he returned to Paris and was appointed a canon of the Metropolitan Church.
B. is the author of many apologetic works, which rightly make him one of the most effective defenders of Christianity in the eighteenth century. The most celebrated of all is the Dictionnaire théologique, which represents the first attempt of its kind and which, despite certain defects of doctrine and method, was deservedly appreciated by his contemporaries and by posterity. Published in Paris in 1788, in 3 vols., in 4º, it collected the articles written by B. for the Encyclopédie. It was subsequently reprinted several times in different formats and with many additions (8 vols., Liège 1789; Toulouse 1801; there 1819; Besançon 1838; 4 vols., Paris 1859; 12 vols., there 1875).
Besides the Dictionnaire, the following works deserve mention: Le déisme réfuté par lui-même (2 vols., Paris 1765) against Rousseau; La certitude des preuves
Démonstrations évangéliques; Apologie de la religion chré-
tienne (2 vols., there 1790) against d’Holbach; Réponse aux
Conseils raisonnables (there 1771) against Voltaire, included
in an equivalent form by Migne in the Démonstrations évangéliques;
Examen du matérialisme ou réfutation du Système de la
nature (2 vols., there 1771); Traité historique et dogmatique
de la vraie religion (12 vols., there 1780).
B. has been reproached for the collaboration he gave to the
Encyclopédie and hence for the dissemination that he thereby
provided for this work, in itself so dangerous.
Nevertheless, as Dublanchy observes, it should be held
that B. decided to undertake this collaboration only after
the insistence of his friends and the pressing advice of the
archbishop of Paris. At first the collaboration was limited
to revising deficient articles. Before long, however, the
corrector found himself obliged to replace with completely
new articles those that did not seem capable of correction.