Critical History of Eclecticism

never ceases to repeat; he even claims to
provide proof that certain dogmas of
Eclectic Philosophy Eclectic Philosophy: A school of thought, primarily Neoplatonist, that claimed to select the best doctrines from all previous philosophical systems. have slipped into
Christian Theology. Furthermore,
he presents as an indubitable truth
that the fundamental article
of this Sect—namely the system
of Emanations Emanations: The philosophical theory that all things flow from a single divine source, like light from a sun, rather than being created from nothing., or of
Pantheism—has been adopted by
Mystical Theologians, who
took as their master the pseudo-
Saint Dionysius the Areopagite Pseudo-Dionysius: A late 5th-century mystical writer whose works were incorrectly attributed to Dionysius, the Athenian judge converted by St. Paul. This "false" attribution gave his Neoplatonic ideas immense authority in the medieval Church..
From which it follows, by
an inevitable consequence, that
the Church is nothing more than
an unfaithful guardian of the
deposit The "deposit of faith" (depositum fidei) refers to the body of revealed truth in the Scriptures and Tradition that the Church is tasked with preserving unchanged. which has been entrusted to her;
and that we can no longer
rely upon her teaching.
Such is the consequence to
which Mr. Brucker would like
to lead us. If we
believe him, Christian Theology
has taken on a strong tincture of
New Platonism; and following
the views of the Encyclopédiste, everything