Another branch of study which tradition says Scot followed with success at Paris was that of theology. Du Boulay declares, indeed, that he reached the dignity of doctor in that faculty, and there is some reason to think that this may actually have been the case. There can be no doubt that an ecclesiastical career then offered the surest road to wealth and fame in the case of all who aspired to literary honours. That Scot took holy orders[22] seems very probable. He may well have done so even before he came to Paris, for Bacon makes it one of his reproaches against the corruption of the times, that men were ordained far too readily, and before they had reached the canonical age: from their tenth to their twentieth year, he says.[23] It is difficult to verify Dempster’s assertion that Scot’s renown as a theologian is referred to by Baconthorpe the famous Carmelite of the following century.[24] This author was commonly known as the _Princeps Averroïstarum_. If he really mentions Michael, and does not mean Duns Scotus, as there is some reason to suspect, his praise may have been given quite as much on the ground of profane as of religious philosophy. On the other hand we find abounding and unmistakable references to Scripture, the Liturgy, and ascetic counsels in the writings of Scot, from which it may safely be concluded that he had not merely embraced the ecclesiastical profession as a means of livelihood or of advancement, but had seriously devoted himself to sacred studies. It is true that we cannot point to any instance in which he receives the title of doctor, but this omission may be explained without seriously shaking our belief in the tradition that Scot gained this honour at Lutetia. During the twelfth century the Bishop of Paris forbade the doctors of theology to profess that faculty in any other University.[25] Scot may well, therefore, have been one of those philosophical divines who taught _entre les deux ponts_, as the same statute commanded they should, though in other lands and during his after-life, he came to be known simply as the ‘Great Master’: the brightest of all those choice spirits of the schools on which Paris set her stamp.