BERGIER, NICOLAS-SYLVESTRE. - French theologian and apologist, b. at Darney (Lorraine) on 31 Dec. 1718, d. at Versailles on 9 Apr. 1790. Having obtained his doctorate in theology at Besançon, he went to Paris to complete his studies. Recalled to his diocese in 1748, he was 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 Archbishop M. de Beaumont, he returned to Paris and was appointed 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 18th century. Famous among them all is the Dictionnaire théologique, which represents the first attempt of its kind and which, despite some 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 various formats and with many additions (8 vols., Liège 1789; Toulouse 1801; ibid. 1819; Besançon 1838; 4 vols., Paris 1859; 12 vols., ibid. 1875).
Besides the Dictionnaire, the following works deserve to be remembered: Le déisme réfuté par lui-même (2 vols., Paris 1765) against Rousseau; La certitude des preuves du christianisme (ibid. 1767), included by Migne in his
Démonstrations évangéliques; Apologie de la religion chré-
tienne (2 vols., ibid. 1790) against Holbach; Réponse aux
Conseils raisonnables (ibid. 1771) against Voltaire, likewise included by Migne in the Démonstrations évangéliques;
Examen du matérialisme ou réfutation du Système de la
nature (2 vols., ibid. 1771); Traité historique et dogmatique
de la vraie religion (12 vols., ibid. 1780).
B. has been reproached for the collaboration he lent to the Encyclopédie and therefore for the dissemination that he thereby provided to this work in itself so dangerous. Nevertheless, as Dublanchy observes, it is to be held that B. did not decide upon such collaboration except after the insistences of friends and the pressing advice of the Archbishop of Paris. At first the collaboration was limited to the revision of deficient articles. Soon, however, the corrector found himself under the necessity of replacing with completely new articles those that did not seem susceptible of correction.