The Renaissance continued the longstanding Western Christian engagement with the riches of Greek and Roman thought but gave greater attention to ancient poetry and history--disciplines now known as the humanities. Renaissance humanists often looked to the Roman orator, Cicero, for the "words that sting" and set human souls afire with the love of virtue and hatred of vice. Despite the fact that Protestant theologians worried about Renaissance overconfidence in the human capacity for true virtue, the great thinkers of the Reformation did not abandon the Renaissance humanist retrieval of Greco-Roman wisdom. Protestant schools continued to teach the classical languages as well as ancient philosophy and moral wisdom. Martin Luther's friend and ally, Philipp Melanchthon, articulated the limited but fundamental role of pre-Christian texts in the education of young people and mature theologians.