Who can hide or flee before the unique divinity of the Trinity?^[1] To the Trinity, the entire globe of the earth seems as a raindrop,^[2] or a bit of foam^[3] or a drop of morning dew that descends from heaven. As it is written, He sits above the vault of the earth, from where its inhabitants seem like grasshoppers.^[4] And, He has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and held the whole earth in his palm.^[5] And further, The heavens are my throne, the earth the footstool for my feet.^[6] Notice that the power of the one divinity is incomprehensible, since the heavens, which he holds in his palm, are also his throne, and the earth, which is enclosed in his fist, is in turn the footstool for his feet. In fact, the whole of the heavens is contained in his palm, and the entire earth is enclosed in his hand. It is also the throne and footstool for his feet, as it is written, To whom the whole world is like dust on the scales. And thus he fills all things, containing all things from within and without, since this eternal, undivided Trinity is present everywhere and possesses the invisible fullness of the divinity.^[7]

Let us hear what the Lord says to the prophet Jeremiah concerning idolaters: Go and say, ‘Return, house of Israel, says the Lord. I will not show you an indignant face, because I am compassionate, says the Lord. I will not maintain my anger forever. Rise, acknowledge your guilt. You have been godless and followed strangers under every green tree.’^[1] See what God promises to those who return after they fall: to forgive their sins, once they have turned from their apostasy. And the Lord says further by the mouth of Jeremiah, My pampered children have had to trod bitter paths, pushed along like a flock kidnapped by the enemy. Have courage, children, cry out to God, because he who has tested you will remember you. Just as you thought to separate yourselves from God, return to him, seeking him with ten times the zeal, since the one who afflicted you with so many calamities will also give you, with salvation, everlasting joy.^[2] O the mercy of God! How he calls to those who have fallen, that they might rise again! How he exhorts them so that, after their errors with idols, they would return to him! Like a benevolent Father he promises the eternal joy of salvation to his children if they mend their ways. Among other things, he says further by the same prophet, I will lead them back to this country. I will firmly reestablish them and will not destroy them. I will plant them, and never again will I uproot them.^[3] In fact, since he had threatened, The one who sacrifices to the gods will be uprooted,^[4] so that those who had sinned would not despair (as though, having been uprooted for having sacrificed to idols, they could not be replanted), he exhorts them, since if they repent they can be restored to their prior state. If they do not correct their crime, however, the sentence will be carried out. Moreover, it was preached to the Ninevites that their city would be destroyed after three days.^[5] Why after three days, if not that they might repent and the sentence be cancelled, or that they might remain in their sin and have even greater reason to perish? This is as he said through the prophet, I do not desire the death of the one who dies, but that he would return to me and live.^[6] And thus it happened that the Ninevites, destined to die for their sins, were pardoned because of their repentance.^[7] And why did the construction of the ark by Noah take a hundred years,^[8] if not so that those who saw and heard what was threatened would correct themselves? Indeed, God wants no one to perish. This is why we read in Solomon, The Lord had mercy on sinners.^[9] And further, You have compassion on all, because you can do all things. You overlook people’s sins, that they might repent. It is in this sense that the Lord, deploring the faithlessness of the Jews, says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you, how often have I wanted to gather your children, like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!^[10] Everywhere in the Law, then, the Lord exhorts sinners to conversion, not wanting that his creatures fall into perdition. And the Law that was given had no other purpose than that men and women would turn from error to the truth. Nonetheless, in the New Testament the author of the Law reveals himself as being more merciful, since he wanted to be more generous and rich in mercy^[11] at that time when he deigned to manifest the sacrament of his Son our Lord, so that grace would be more abundant through the preaching of the Son than through the preaching of the servants.

Let us turn and trust in the Lord while we live the season of this life, and let us prepare the viaticum of penance before our judge. Let us not fill our time with futile engagements or say that we are born to sin, but let us live to act well. And even if we fall into sin, since, given the setting of this world,^[1] it is unavoidable that we sin, let us come to our senses, desiring to flee the abyss of Gehenna. Therefore let us repent with faith, pray with the heart, weep from our very depths.

Let us take an example from God. In fact, he loves everything that exists equally, and he hates nothing that he has made: in fact, he created nothing that should be hated. Nonetheless, this did not mean that he loved Jews and Egyptians in the same way, or Pharaoh as Moses and Aaron. At the same time, he did not love the other children of Israel as he loved Moses and Aaron and Miriam, and further, he did not love Aaron and Miriam as he loved Moses. Although what is said is true, You have mercy on all, because all is yours, Lord and lover of souls. In fact, a spirit of incorruptibility is in all, nevertheless the one who arranged all with measure, number and weight unquestionably also proportions his love to the measure of each one’s merits. Do we perhaps think that Paul, when he persecuted the church of God, was loved in the same way as when he underwent persecutions and torments for it^[1] and when he said that he bore within himself concern for all the churches?^[2]

The love with which God loves is incomprehensible and must not be thought of as subject to change. He did not begin to love us only when we were reconciled to him through the blood of his Son.^[1] Rather, he loved us before the foundation of the world,^[2] calling us to be his children together with the Only-Begotten, when we were as yet absolutely nothing. The fact, then, that we have been reconciled to God through the death of his Son^[3] should not be heard and understood in the sense that he began to love what he had previously hated, as when an enemy reconciles with his enemy and the two become friends and begin to mutually love one another just as they once hated one another. We have been reconciled with one who already loved us, one with whom, due to sin, we had become enemies. The apostle will show whether or not I speak the truth. He says, God shows his love toward us because, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.^[4] God felt love for us even when, behaving as his enemies, we committed sin. And yet with all truth it was said of him, Lord, you detest all who do evil.^[5] Therefore, in a way both wonderful and divine, he loved us even when he hated us. He hated that in us that he did not make, but since our iniquity had not completely destroyed his work, he knew how to hate in each of us what was our own work and at the same time to love what was his work. And this can be applied to everything else, given that this was said to him in all truth, You despise nothing that you have created.^[6] If in fact he had hated something he would not have willed it, nor could something exist that the Almighty had not called into existence—and he would not have called it if, in the thing he hates, there were not at least something that he could love. Rightly he hates and condemns evil, because it is contrary to the principle of how he does things. Nevertheless, even in what is contaminated by evil, he loves either the love with which he heals it or his judgment with which he condemns it. Therefore God hates nothing that he has created, since as the author of nature, and not of sin, he hates only the evil that he did not create. And he is moreover the author of the good^[7] that he draws from evil, whether healing it by his mercy or making it serve his secret plans. Granted therefore that God hates nothing of what he has made, who can speak adequately of the love that he feels for the members of his Only-Begotten? And, above all, who can speak worthily of the love that he bears for his Only-Begotten, in whom all things visible and invisible were made,^[8] things that he loves in a way that corresponds perfectly to the place each one occupies in the plan of creation?

We must try, with God’s help, to reconcile the truth of this text, You despise nothing that you have made, with that other, I loved Jacob and hated Esau.^[1] If, in fact, God hated Esau, because he was made as a vessel for common use, and the same potter made a vessel for noble use and another for common use,^[2] how can it be that you despise nothing that you have created? He in fact hates Esau, whom he himself made for common use. This difficulty is resolved bearing in mind that God is the creator of all creatures. Now, every one of God’s creatures is good,^[3] and every person is a creature—as a person, not as a sinner. God is therefore the creator of the body and the soul of the person. Neither of these two realities is evil, and God does not hate them, since he hates nothing that he has created. Now the soul is superior to the body. But God, author and creator of both, hates only sin in human beings. A person’s sin is disorder and perversion, that is, separation from the supreme Creator and attachment to inferior creatures. Therefore God does not hate Esau the man but Esau the sinner.

The Lord is true and merciful, and he does not delight in the destruction of the living.^[1] What is the ruin of the living if not death? But the death of the living who live badly, who will perish in the second death,^[2] not that of the living who are righteous, that is, who seek God and are not subject to the second death but only to the first, which is a result of the sin of Adam with which they were born. If then God were the author of death, he should rejoice in the destruction of the living as though it were one of his good works, since it is written, The Lord will rejoice in his works,^[3] and he made nothing out of hate, but everything that he made was very good,^[4] as it is written, Since you love everything that exists, and you despise nothing that you have created. If you had hated something, you would not have created it.

It is written, Not a messenger or an angel but the Lord himself saved them.^[1] He forgave them, for no other reason than that he loved them. Indeed, it says forgive, as with his own children, according to that verse that is referred to in another book, You have compassion on all things, Lord, lover of souls, because they are yours, nor do you nourish hatred toward the beings you have created. For their salvation, therefore, the Father, not sparing his own Son, gave him over to death,^[2] so that by the death of his own Son, having reduced to powerlessness him who had power over death, that is, the devil, he would free all those who were subject to him through the bonds of slavery.^[3] For this reason it is added, He himself rescued them, he comforted them and raised them up.^[4] He in fact comforts and exalts those who are saved and lifts the redeemed on wings of virtue toward the most sublime heights. He dwells in them and with them, through both instruction and knowledge of the truth, not only for a day or two but for all the days of eternity, communicating life to them until the end of the world,^[5] because he is the cause of salvation.

The Father is good, the Son is good, the Holy Spirit is good. About the Father it is written in Psalm 72, How good is the God of Israel toward those who are pure of heart!^[1] About the Son, I am the good shepherd^[2] and Good Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal life?^[3] About the Holy Spirit, in Ezra, You bestowed on them your good Spirit.^[4]