On the Trinity preface

The Roman world looks up to you as queen; and because there is now nothing in human affairs in which you could grow further, not content with earthly heights, you desire by holy faith in God to possess the heavenly things which the true Son of God promises to those who piously believe in him. And you labour at this like one of the wisest of women, understanding that all this height of royal power will profit nothing unless you strive, by the knowledge and defence of the true faith, to attain heavenly glory. And yet it is evident how grateful you are to Christ our God and Lord, who gave you this kingdom, when with anxious inquiry you ask how those chapters are to be answered which the Arians set against the catholics from their interpretations of the sacred law. Having the affection of true faith, you desire, as far as possible, to understand what you faithfully believe; for a religious soul is fed as with a divine banquet especially when it understands what it believes. But although you abhor the impious words of the heretics, you nevertheless desire with religious zeal to be equipped against them, so that you may reject them with reason, lest your rejection of what you abhor seem, as it were from the power of your royal rank, a matter of presumption, not of proof. To this desire of yours, so pious, so necessary and most beautiful, though you see me unequal to it, I do not dare to come against you as one resisting. For I confess that on the one side the consciousness of my inability and the unskilfulness of my rough speech cover me with shame, urging me to be silent; on the other, the fervour of faith believes it dangerous to be silent. For how does it not seem dangerous if, challenged against an impious enemy, we turn our backs, as it were, out of embarrassment about our ability to speak? Especially since in the cause of faith loftiness of speech is not to be sought, when the divine testimonies alone suffice, which accomplish more than any eloquence however rich. Nor should one be held back by the consciousness of one's faults, since they are rather lightened if one does not fear to confess God, after the example of the thief in the gospel, who on the very day he confessed God deserved to enter paradise with him whom he had confessed. Let us begin, then, obeying your most religious commands, to engage with the adversary—not presuming on our own strength, but trusting in the protecting patronage of the Saviour, against whom the impiety of the heretics, in the manner of the pagans and with the fury of the Jews, stirs up war. But since, in what you deigned to write as the heretics' position, I saw that much was confused, so that you seemed to me not to know fully what the Arians assert, I thought it better first to make plain how they believe and how, under the ambiguity of their language, they capture simple souls—and especially when they commend their impious words under a common confession; for only then is the faithful answer clear for refutation, when the impious evasion of the sacrilegious sect has first been exposed.