These facts would seem to justify the conclusion that there were many before Luther appeared who were approaching the ideas of religion which later appealed especially to the Protestants. The insistence of the Protestants upon salvation through faith alone in God, their suspicion of ceremonies and "good works," their reliance upon the Bible, and the stress they laid upon preaching,--all these were to be found in Germany and elsewhere before Luther began to preach. [Sidenote: The German humanists.] [Sidenote: Rudolph Agricola, 1442-1485.] 138. Among the critics of the churchmen, monks, and theologians, none were more conspicuous than the humanists. The Renaissance in Italy, which may be said to have begun with Petrarch and his library, has already been described. The Petrarch of Germany was Rudolph Agricola, who, while not absolutely the first German to dedicate himself to classical studies, was the first who by his charming personality and varied accomplishments stimulated others, as Petrarch had done, to carry on the pursuits which he himself so much enjoyed. Unlike most of the Italian humanists, however, Agricola and his followers were interested in the language of the people as well as in Latin and Greek; and proposed that the works of antiquity should be translated into German. Moreover, the German humanists were generally far more serious and devout than the Italian scholars. [Sidenote: The humanists desire to reform the German universities.] As the humanists increased in numbers and confidence they began to criticise the excessive attention given in the German universities[267] to logic and the scholastic theology. These studies had lost their earlier vitality[268] and had degenerated into fruitless disputations. The bad Latin which the professors used themselves and taught their students, and the preference still given to Aristotle over all other ancient writers, disgusted the humanists. They therefore undertook to prepare new and better text-books, and proposed that the study of the Greek and Roman poets and orators should be introduced into the schools and colleges. Some of the classical scholars were for doing away with theology altogether, as a vain, monkish study which only obscured the great truths of religion. The old-fashioned professors, on their part, naturally denounced the new learning, which they declared made pagans of those who became enamored of it. Sometimes the humanists were permitted to teach their favorite subjects in the universities, but as time went on it became clear that the old and the new teachers could not work amicably side by side. [Sidenote: The humanist satire on the monks and theologians, the so-called _Letters of Obscure Men_.]