In his ‘Reply to Emser‘ Zwingli opens with this beautiful salvo-
NOT far were you, most nimble Emser (for wild goats should be more nimble than stags), from tearing me away from the very clear light of the celestial word and bringing me over to the side of the Roman Pontiff by that threatening pamphlet of yours against my confutation of the Canon of the Mass which I thrust forth rather than published. It is so grandiloquent that no one can understand its difficult periods unless he descends into a well; so fortified with things more solid than the Scriptures, namely, legends of the saints and trifles more foolish than old wives’ tales, that no one can take it by storm unless he is well equipped with gourds, pumpkins, and rotten cabbage.
Besides, the snares which you cleverly spread, because of their unexpectedness, terrify me more than their real importance warrants; for you did not, as a Christian especially ought, give any warning; you sent no herald with a demand for satisfaction; and you attacked suddenly, not in front but from the rear, one who suspected no such thing; nor did you engage at close quarters, so that at least the clash of arms might give notice of an enemy’s presence, but you skirmished in quite remote parts.
Consequently, not even a rumor of the wrathful ibex who was rashly laying everything waste could have reached me, if it had not by mere chance happened that George Vadian, a man of marked piety and culture, was journeying on certain business in the parts where you were tearing around. While he was at first not a little disturbed by the strangeness of your conduct, yet, having obtained one of your pamphlets—a prisoner, as it were, from your army—he promptly transmitted it to me, and I have treated it a little more kindly than you treated mine.
It’s quite sad that theologians today aren’t masters of prose in the way the Reformers were. No wonder the 16th century-ers are far more entertaining and memorable than our flat-lining near death through sheer boring-ness contemporaries.
Zwinglius Redivivus 