Brugère, Louis-Frédéric

BRUGÈRE, LOUIS-FRÉDÉRIC. - French theologian, b. at Orléans on 8 Oct. 1823 to a modest family and d. at Issy on 11 Apr. 1888. He completed his studies at the seminary in Orléans, taking his degree in Rome after several years of teaching at the diocesan seminary. In 1861 he entered St. Sulpice and there from 1862 to 1886 held the chair of Apologetics, to which in 1869 he added the teaching of ecclesiastical history. In formulating the proofs of Revelation he gives great prominence to moral arguments, from which he ascends to physical and metaphysical ones, convinced that the act of faith must not only respond to the demands of reason but must also satisfy the aspirations of the heart. Moral certainty, therefore, in his method, is of no less importance than physical and metaphysical certainty in inducing the intellect to faith.

He wrote: De vera religione (Paris 1873-78); De vera Ecclesia (ibid. 1873-78); Tableau de l'histoire et de la littérature de l'église (in 4°, lithographed for the use of the seminarians of St. Sulpice in 4 vols.).