It is due to the Friars that Bible study is again favoured at the mediæval universities. But even these Friars were taken away from the Bible by the current tendency toward scholasticism. Dogmatics, systematics, dialectics were what everybody wanted. The curriculum of a student of theology required first a training in Biblical studies, then he had to go to attend lectures on the _Sententiæ_, as they called the text-book for systematics. Likewise the professor was bound first for two or three years to teach Biblical matters before he could touch upon systematics. In a number of German universities there still remain some traces of this mediæval regulation. But we are told that both professors and students hurried on to get rid of their Bible course as quickly as possible in order to reach the higher level of dialectics and systematics. The Bible among these theologians was a text-book for the junior classes, but not held in great esteem as compared with the treasured text-book of the senior classes, the _Liber sententiarum._ It is no wonder that a reaction against this system of scholasticism was stimulated by the Bible itself. Two streams we may distinguish, both starting within the boundaries of the church and of ecclesiastical theology, both inclined to overflow these boundaries, and both ending in non-conformist movements. One stream is represented by the mystics. They are pious people, led by high-church preachers, Master Eckhard, Tauler, Suso, and others. These preachers are given to thorough study of the Bible. But their allegory turns out to be far different from that traditional with the fathers. They care for God and the soul, and for nothing else in the world. Their favourite text-book is Canticles: the Christian soul as the bride of God or of Christ. This mysticism sometimes comes into collision with the sacramental view of the church. Being in complete spiritual union with God, the mystic wished no outward sign; piety was love, not creed. The church instinctively felt that where these ideas were prevailing the whole ecclesiastical system was in danger, and tried to stop the movement. But by this very opposition the movement became more anti-ecclesiastical than it had been before. The mystic circles withdrew themselves from the superintendence of the church, they read the Bible, they read the books of their spiritual fathers, and they became more and more sure of their own mystical theory as opposed to the doctrine of the church.