Assertio vera de Trinitate, contra quorundam deliramenta quae ex Serveti aliorumque phanaticorum hominum opinionibus nunc primum in quibusdam Hungariae partibus exorta ac publicata sunt

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To the man eminent in piety and learning, Master Stephanus Szegedin, a brother and esteemed fellow-minister, Theodore Beza.

Greetings.

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You may well be persuaded of how much I cherish you, my brother, since I have dared to publish these works of yours without your knowledge. Yet, accept my reasons for publishing them, that I might not appear to abuse our mutual union in Christ. Two years have passed since a certain man came here from your region, a young man indeed pious and (as I judge) not unlearned. When I first inquired of him about the state of the churches in your parts, and how they were constantly struggling against those monsters, he related to me not a few things very pleasing regarding the zeal and constancy of Master P. Melius, yourself, and others in bringing forth the truth against the blasphemers. He also handed me the little book, upon the reading of which I was greatly delighted, because it seemed to me, with a certain clear brevity, to expose and refute everything that those men were accustomed to argue with some semblance of probability. Therefore, since he was leaving us because of the plague raging here, I kept the little book with me to be transcribed, but on the condition that I would return it to him upon request, partly because it was only fair, and partly because he asserted then that it had been augmented and revised by you later. Since that time, I have not seen the man who went to Basel, nor have I received more than one letter from him, long after it had been written. When I had replied to that, I heard nothing of him thereafter. I wish he were safe; since I owe him much on this account, it grieves me that I do not even know his name, so that I might at least thank him by letter. But that whole year was so mournful and inconvenient for me, that besides...