Their answers to William of St. Amour reflect the character of the men. Bonaventura defended the mendicant form of the monastic life as an ideal; but without admitting the truth of the dark picture William had drawn, he conceded that serious abuses had crept in, and that already there was need of a reformation unless matters were to be let grow worse. Thomas makes no concessions whatever. He entitles his book _Against those who Assail the Worship of God and the Monastic Life_ (_Contra Impugnantes Dei Cultum et Religionem_). William and all who hold with him are the enemies of God and of His Church. The critics of the Mendicant rule are standing in the way of the forces which are sent of God to win the world to Christ. The monk, and especially the mendicant friar, is the only thorough Christian who keeps to the “counsels of perfection” our Lord gave His disciples, as well as to the precepts of obedience obligatory upon all. William uttered false and damnable doctrine when he tried to limit them to a purely ascetic life. They have the right to teach as well as to pray and mourn, and the Pope has power to open to them the doors of every secular college by his mandate. The controversy was brought to an end in 1257, when Pope Alexander IV. at Anagni formally condemned the book of William of St. Amour, and bound the plenipotentiaries of the university by an oath to admit the Mendicants to their former footing in the university. And to signalize the victory of the friars, Thomas and Bonaventura were admitted to the doctorate on the same day, October 23d, 1257.