3 Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the LORD of hosts.
(Version 2, 3.) The Lord is angry with your fathers with great anger, and you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets cried out, saying. LXX: The Lord is angry with your fathers with great wrath, and you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord Almighty: Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. And do not be like your fathers, whom the former prophets rebuked, saying. The anger of the Lord does not signify a disturbance in Him who becomes angry; but rather the merits and sins of those on whom the anger of God falls. Otherwise, the Lord never avenges in anger; but He corrects in order to bring about improvement. Hence the prophet prays in the Psalms: O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger, nor chastise me in Your wrath (Psalm 6:1). And in another place we read: Correct us, O Lord; but not in Your anger, but in Your mercy (Jeremiah 10:24). Therefore, the Lord is angry with their fathers who are now being criticized, not according to the Seventy interpreters with great anger, but simply with anger. For if he were angry with great anger, he would never have provoked the captives to repentance through Daniel and Ezekiel. And when he is angry with them, the Lord of hosts speaks to you, for which 'Sabaoth' is placed in Hebrew, which sometimes the Seventy translate as Almighty, sometimes as Virtues. And he says: Return to me, and I will return to you, according to what we read: Come near to the Lord, and he will come near to you. But to those who have turned away from me, I have also turned away from them. He commands them to return to the Lord, those who have returned from Babylon, so that the Lord will also return to them, lest the children begin to suffer what the fathers once suffered, to whom likewise the prophets of that time spoke. Note that in a few short verses and sentences, in both Haggai and Zechariah, the phrase 'says the Lord of hosts' is always added, so that they may know that it is the Lord who commands against the king's authority and the surrounding enemies; and they are encouraged by this confidence in the building of the temple.
All who see are not equally enlightened by Christ, but individuals are enlightened according to the measure in which they are able to receive the power of light. And just as the eyes of our body are not equally enlightened by the sun, but to the extent that one shall have ascended to higher places and contemplated its risings with a gaze from a higher vantage point, to such an extent will he perceive more of both its splendor and heat. So also to the extent that our mind shall have approached Christ in a more exalted and lofty manner and shall have presented itself nearer the splendor of his light, to such an extent will it be made to shine more magnificently and clearly in his light. [This] also he himself says through the prophet: “ ‘Draw near to me, and I shall draw near to you,’ says the Lord,” And again he says, “I am God who draws near, and not a God afar off.”
Indeed, God is good to everyone, but he shows his patient endurance especially to those who sin. And if you want to hear a paradoxical statement—paradoxical because it is not customary, but true for the great piety it reveals—listen. God always seems to be severe to the righteous but good to sinners and quick to clemency. He restores the one who sinned and fell and tells him, “Shall not he who falls arise; or he that turns away, shall he not turn back again?” And “Why did that stupid daughter of Judah turn away with a shameless revolting?” And again, “Return to me, and I will return to you.” Elsewhere he assures with an oath the salvation from repentance by much clemency. “ ‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘I do not desire the death of a sinner, but that he should turn from his way and live.’ ” To the righteous he says, “If a man achieves every righteousness and truth and later turns from his way and sins, I will not remember his righteousness, but he will die in his sin.” O such strictness toward the righteous! O such abundant forgiveness toward the sinner! He finds so many different means, without himself changing, to keep the righteous in check and forgive the sinner, by usefully dividing his rich goodness.
Free will and God’s grace are simultaneously commended. When God says, “Turn to me, and I will turn to you,” one of these clauses—that which invites our return to God—evidently belongs to our will; while the other, which promises his return to us, belongs to his grace. Here, possibly, the Pelagians think they have justification for their opinion, which they so prominently advance, that God’s grace is given according to our merits. In the east, indeed, that is to say, in the province of Palestine, in which is the city of Jerusalem, Pelagius, when examined in person by the bishop, did not venture to affirm this. For it happened that among the objections which were brought up against him, this in particular was objected, that he maintained that the grace of God is given according to our merits, an opinion which was so diverse from Catholic doctrine and so hostile to the grace of Christ that unless he had anathemized it, as laid to his charge, he himself must have been anathemized on its account. He pronounced, indeed, the required anathema upon the dogm;a, but how insincerely his later books plainly show; for in them he maintains absolutely no other opinion than that the grace of God is given according to our merits. Such passages do they collect out of the Scriptures—like the one which I just now quoted, “Turn to me, and I will turn to you”—as if it were owing to the merits of our turning to God that his grace were given us, wherein he himself even turns to us. Now the persons who hold this opinion fail to observe that unless our turning to God were itself God’s gift, it would not be said to him in prayer, “Turn us again, O God of hosts,” and, “You, O God, will turn and quicken us,” and again, “Turn us, O God of our salvation”—with other passages of similar import, too numerous to mention here. For with respect to our coming to Christ, what else does it mean than our being turned to him by believing? And yet he says, “No man can come to me, except it were given to him of my Father.”
If we are entirely devoted to God and humbly implore his mercy, through the mercy of God we may deserve to be healed of all our infirmities, rescued from all our sins, set free from the frequent flooding of waters. We ought to believe for certain, dearest brothers, that if our sins cease, the divine mercy will immediately remove the punishments that were due to us. Thus he himself has deigned to promise through the prophet when he said, “Return to me, and I will return to you,” and again, “If you groan and return to me, then you shall be saved.” Therefore let us turn to a better life while the remedies are still in our power. By our good deeds let us summon to mercy the kind and merciful Lord whom we provoked by our sins. According to his usual practice, he will then deign to keep adversities from us and in his clemency to grant us good fortune.
[AD 420] Jerome on Zechariah 1:2-3