Council of Orange II, 529

living root; but that which has been cut off, cannot live without the root [John 15:5 ff.]" [St. Prosper].¹

198. Can. 25. "The love with which we love God. Truly to love God is a gift of God. He Himself has granted that He be loved, who though not loved loves. Although we were displeasing we were loved, so that there might be produced in us [something] by which we might please. For the Spirit whom we love together with the Father and the Son pours forth the charity [of the Father and the Son] in our hearts [Rom. 5:5]" [St. Prosper].²

199. And thus according to the statements of the Holy Scriptures written above, or the explanations of the ancient Fathers, God being propitious, we ought to proclaim and to believe that through the sin of the first man free will was so changed and so weakened that afterwards no one could either love God as he ought, or believe in God, or perform what is good on account of God, unless the grace of divine mercy reached him first. Therefore, we believe that in the [case of] the just Abel, and Noe, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the multitude of the ancient saints that illustrious faith which the Apostle Paul proclaims in their praise [Heb. 11], was conferred not by the good of nature, which had been given before in [the case of] Adam, but through the grace of God. Even after the coming of the Lord we know and likewise believe that this grace was not held in the free will of all who desired to be baptized, but was bestowed by the bounty of Christ, according to what has already been said often, and Paul the Apostle declares: It has been given to you for Christ, not only, that you may believe in him, but also that you may suffer for him [Phil. 1:29]; and this: God, who has begun a good work in you, will perfect it even to the day of our Lord [Phil. 1:6]; and this: By grace you are made safe through faith, and this not of yourselves: for it is the gift of God [Eph. 2:8]; and that which the Apostle says about himself: I have obtained mercy, that I may be faithful [I Cor. 7:25; I Tim. 1:13]; he did not say: "because I was," but: "that I may be." And that: What have you, that you have not received? [I Cor. 4:7]. And that: Every good gift, and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights [Jas. 1:17]. And that: No one has anything, except it has been given him from above [John 3:27]. Innumerable are the testimonies of the Sacred Scriptures which can be brought forward to prove grace, but they are passed over out of a desire for brevity; also because, in truth, more [proofs] will not profit those for whom a few do not suffice.