Chapter 4 of “Dives in Misericordia” (“Rich in Mercy”) is entitled “The Concept of ‘Mercy’ in the Old Testament.” It continues as follows:
“4. . . . In this way, mercy is in a certain sense contrasted with God’s justice, and in many cases is shown to be not only more powerful than that justice but also more profound. Even the Old Testament teaches that, although justice is an authentic virtue in man, and in God signifies transcendent perfection nevertheless love is ‘greater’ than justice: greater in the sense that it is primary and fundamental. Love, so to speak, conditions justice and, in the final analysis, justice serves love. The primacy and superiority of love vis-à-vis justice – this is a mark of the whole of revelation – are revealed precisely through mercy. This seemed so obvious to the psalmists and prophets that the very term justice ended up by meaning the salvation accomplished by the Lord and His mercy.53 Mercy differs from justice, but is not in opposition to it, if we admit in the history of man – as the Old Testament precisely does – the presence of God, who already as Creator has linked Himself to His creature with a particular love. Love, by its very nature, excludes hatred and ill-will towards the one to whom He once gave the gift of Himself: Nihil odisti eorum quae fecisti, ‘you hold nothing of what you have made in abhorrence.’54 These words indicate the profound basis of the relationship between justice and mercy in God, in His relations with man and the world. They tell us that we must seek the life-giving roots and intimate reasons for this relationship by going back to ‘the beginning,’ in the very mystery of creation. They foreshadow in the context of the Old Covenant the full revelation of God, who is ‘love.’55.”
53. Psalms 40(39):11; 98(97):2f.; Isaiah 45:21; 51:5, 8; 56:1.
54. Wisdom 11:24.
55. 1 John 4:16.
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