ll of injustice
and wickedness. Indeed, milder teachers, whose view became the accepted
one, maintained that truly righteous men are found among the heathen, who
have therefore as much claim upon eternal salvation as the pious ones of
Israel.(328)

Chapter XX. God's Love and Compassion

1. As justice forms the basis of human morality, with kindness and
benevolence as milder elements to mitigate its sternness, so, according to
the Jewish view, mercy and love represent the milder side of God, but by
no means a higher attribute counteracting His justice. Love can supplement
justice, but cannot replace it. The sages say:(329) "When the Creator saw
that man could not endure, if measured by the standard of strict justice,
He joined His attribute of mercy to that of justice, and created man by
the combined principle of both." The divine compassion with human frailty,
felt by both Moses and Hosea, manifests itself in God's mercy. Were it not
for the weakness of the flesh, justice would have sufficed. But the divine
plan of salvation demands redeeming love which wins humanity step by step
for higher moral ends. The educational value of this love lies in the fact
that it is a gift of grace, bestowed on man by the fatherly love of God to
ward off the severity of full retribution. His pardon must conduce to a
deeper moral earnestness.(330) "For with Thee there is forgiveness that
Thou mayest be feared."(331) R. Akiba says: "The world is judged by the
divine attribute of goodness."(332)

2. As a matter of course, in the Biblical view God's mercy was realized at
first only with regard to Israel and was afterward extended gradually to
humanity at large. The generation of the flood and the inhabitants of
Sodom perished on account of their guilt, and only the righteous were
saved. This attitude holds throughout the Bible until the late book of
Jonah, with its lesson of God's forgiveness even for the heathen city of
Nineveh after due repentance. In the later Psalms the divine attributes of
mercy are expanded and applied to all the creatures of God.(333) According
to the school of Hillel, whenever the good and evil actions of any man are
found equal in the scales of justice, God inclines the balances toward the
side of mercy.(334) Nay more, in the words of Samuel, the Babylonian
teacher, God judges the nations by the noblest types they produce.(335)

The ruling Sadducean priesthood insisted on the rigid enforcement of the
law. Th