DEFORIS, JEAN-PIERRE. - Benedictine of St. Maur, critic and apologist, b. at Montbrison (Loire) in 1732, d. at St. Maur on 25 June 1794.
He was one of the first entrusted with the critical edition of the Concilia Galliae, of which only one volume appeared (Paris 1789). He edited the critical edition of all the works, including the unpublished ones, of Bossuet, which was to consist of some thirty volumes. The first 15 are furnished with notes and prefaces that aroused much criticism, so that they had to be omitted in the following volumes, but the edition remained incomplete (18 vols., Paris 1772-88). At the same time he composed numerous apologetic and polemical writings such as La réfutation d'un nouvel ouvrage de J.-J. Rousseau intitulé Emile ou de l'éducation (Paris 1762); La divinité de la religion vénée des sophismes de J.-J. Rousseau (2 vols., ibid. 1763); Préservatif pour les fidèles contre les sophismes et les impietés des incrédules (2 vols., ibid. 1764); L'importance et l'étendue des obligations de la vie monastique (2 vols., ibid. 1768); Plan de réforme motivé, présenté aux Etats Généraux (3 vols., ibid. 1787-89).
Having been rumored to have favored the civil constitution of the clergy, he defended himself publicly, rejecting that malicious insinuation with a printed letter that cost him his life: he was guillotined on 25 June 1794.
Bibliography
Ireneo Daniele