Monday, January 1, 2024

Prevenient Grace in the letter of Pope Paul I to the bishops of Spain (c. 758-767)

  

To the Lord our most excellent son and spiritual compater Pippin, king of the Franks and patrician of the Romans [from] Pope Paul.

 

Because through the prevenient grace of the Holy Spirit the heart of your benevolent excellence has been inflamed with love of God, it is manifest, God-preserved and pre-eminent king, that you are committed to the advance of piety. And because we see in you such a wealth of grace, both we and all Christians have grounds for confidence in you that you will achieve with total concentration of the will what concerns the worship of God and the observance of the orthodox faith. (Codex Epistolaris Carolinus: Letters from the Popes to the Frankish Rulers, 739-791 [trans. Richard Price; Translated Texts for Historians 77; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2021], 265)