Today With Zwingli

Zwingli was forbidden by the Zurich City Council to attend the Baden Disputation in the Summer of 1526 (because they knew, as well as anyone did, that if he did, he would be kidnapped and killed by the Catholics).  So instead of attending he corresponded with the participants via means of messengers to and through Johannes Oecolampadius (who did attend).

The Baden Disputation was essentially a ‘bash the Reformers’ conference and Zwingli in particular came in for an in absentia trashing.  So on the 14th of June, 1526, he wrote an open response to the ‘lies’ which were being circulated, published as Zwinglis Antwort and die Boten der Eidgenossen in Baden.

As Schaff notes

The disputation was opened in the Catholic city of Baden, in Aargau, May 21, 1526, and lasted eighteen days, till the 8th of June. The cantons and four bishops sent deputies, and many foreign divines were present. The Protestants were a mere handful, and despised as “a beggarly, miserable rabble.” Zwingli, who foresaw the political aim and result of the disputation, was prevented by the Council of Zurich from leaving home, because his life was threatened; but he influenced the proceedings by daily correspondence and secret messengers. No one could doubt his courage, which he showed more than once in the face of greater danger, as when he went to Marburg through hostile territory, and to the battlefield at Cappel. But several of his friends were sadly disappointed at his absence. He would have equalled Eck in debate and excelled him in biblical learning. Erasmus was invited, but politely declined on account of sickness.

And humorously

Dr. Eck was the champion of the Roman faith, and behaved with the same polemical dexterity and overbearing and insolent manner as at Leipzig: robed in damask and silk, decorated with a golden ring, chain and cross; surrounded by patristic and scholastic folios, abounding in quotations and arguments, treating his opponents with proud contempt, and silencing them with his stentorian voice and final appeals to the authority of Rome. Occasionally he uttered an oath, “Potz Marter.” A contemporary poet, Nicolas Manuel, thus described his conduct: —

“Eck stamps with his feet, and claps his hands,
He raves, he swears, he scolds;
’I do,’ cries he, ’what the Pope commands,
And teach whatever he holds.’ “

It’s better in German

“Eck zappelt mit Füssen und Händen,
Fing an zu schelten und schänden.
Er sprach: Ich blib by dem Verstand,
Den Papst, Cardinal, und Bishof hand.”