We shall need to study the monastic system as the repositories of learning in the Dark Ages, and therefore give but a passing glance at the origin of the order in the doctrine of mysticism. Its evils can not be portrayed without a blush, and it was against this system, taking as it did into its clutches the education of the masses, that the Reformation thrust its weight. We have seen truth _struggling_ against error. It was in the _schools_ of _the early Christians_ that wisdom _by faith_ was taught. It was _into these same schools_ that pagan philosophy crept. It was the teacher who espoused this philosophy, and again a teacher who opposed it. Students imbibed the ideas of the leading educators, and became church teachers. The strongest minds, turning from the Word, and that alone, became expounders of philosophy and the sciences. [Sidenote: Schools of the Dark Ages] Gradually error prevailed, until in the schools, almost entirely in monastic hands, truth was so covered that D’Aubigné’s description of the work of the schoolmen of the Dark Ages is striking. He says: “These industrious artisans of thought had unraveled every theological idea, and of all their threads had woven a web, under which it would have been difficult for more skillful persons than their contemporaries to recognize the truth in its pristine purity.” It is not the province of this chapter to deal with theological controversies in themselves. It is only as these controversies took possession of and molded the courses of study in the schools; only as they found their strongest supporters in the persons of teachers, and were carried to the world by students, that our attention is drawn to another line of argument, which, as it were, clenched the work of the papacy, and gave it its power over the minds of men. [Sidenote: Pelagianism taught] Quoting again from D’Aubigné: “The _Pelagian_ doctrine, expelled by Augustine from the church when it had presented itself boldly, insinuated itself as demi-Pelagianism, and under the mask of the Augustine forms of expression. This error spread with astonishing rapidity throughout Christendom. The danger of the doctrine was particularly manifested in this,—that by placing goodness without, and not within, the heart, it set a great value on external actions, legal observances, and penitential works.... Whilst Pelagianism corrupted the Christian doctrine, it _strengthened the hierarchy_.... When it laid down a doctrine that man could attain a state of perfect sanctification, it affirmed also that the merits of saints and martyrs might be applied to the church.... Pelagianism multiplied rites and ceremonies.