Ancient Forgiveness Classical, Judaic, and Christian

In this book, eminent scholars of classical antiquity and ancient and
medieval Judaism and Christianity explore the nature and place of
forgiveness in the premodern Western world. They discuss whether
the concept of forgiveness, as it is often understood today, was absent
or, at all events, more restricted in scope than has been commonly
supposed, and what related ideas (such as clemency or reconciliation)
may have taken the place of forgiveness. An introductory
chapter reviews the conceptual territory of forgiveness and illuminates
the potential breadth of the idea, enumerating the important
questions a theory of the subject should explore. The following
chapters examine forgiveness in the contexts of classical Greece and
Rome; the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, and Moses Maimonides; and
the New Testament, the church fathers, and Thomas Aquinas.