REVIEW ESSAY: ANCIENT FORGIVENESS

Abstract

Book Reviews REVIEW ESSAY:ANCIENTFORGIVENESS Ancient Forgiveness: Classical, Judaic, and Christian. Edited by CHARLES L. GRISWOLD and DAVID KONSTAN. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xv +260. Hardcover,$90.00/£47.50. ISBN 978-0-521-11948-1. Before Forgiveness: The Origins of a Moral Idea. By DAVID KONSTAN. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pp. xiii + 192. Hardcover, $89.00/£61.00. ISBN 978-0-521-19940-7. Paper, $28.99/£18.99 ISBN 978-1107 -68020-3. n exceptional combination of philosophical depth and cultural interest marks these two new volumes on the history of forgiveness, both published by Cambridge University Press. Though different in important ways, the two works have in common an aim to add a historical dimension to the academic discussion that has recently developed around the act of forgiveness and the process of reconciliation. Both books consider in detail some important differences among a range of ancient and modern assumptions about how reconciliation is effected between human agents after one has seriously harmed or offended the other, with most depth of coverage in Greco-Roman literature and history, ancient Judaism, and early Christianity. In so doing, each work exposes some of the tensions within certain prevalent modern notions of forgiveness, especially unilateral and unconditional forgiveness, as a universal means of conflictresolution and personal growth. Griswold and Konstan first engaged in serious discussion of the issues these works address in academic year 2004–5, when Griswold was engaged in writing Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration (Cambridge, 2007) and Konstan was working on The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature (Toronto, 2006). Recognizing the interdisciplinary interest of the topic , Griswold subsequently organized a 2007 conference, “Liberty, Responsibility, and Forgiveness,” the papers from which now appear in expanded form in Ancient Forgiveness. Although appearing later, Ancient Forgiveness is thus in a way prior to Konstan’s monograph, and his familiarity with the twelve papers collected there is partofwhatenableshim to offer hisown more unified historical narrative. In accordance with a methodology thoughtfully worked out by the organizers , Ancient Forgiveness treats its subject not as a single clearly defined notion but rather as a “forgiveness terrain” encompassing a whole range of interrelated and A 126 REVIEW ESSAY overlapping terms: from the side of the perpetrator remorse, excuse, atonement, and self-exoneration, and for the offended party pardon, mercy, clemency, and other forms of restoration. This bottom-up approach provides room for individual authors to work with the concepts and issues that are most salient in the periods and texts they study without presupposing any necessary relation (whether of sameness, difference, or historical connection) between ancient and modern concepts. Following an introductory essay by Adam Morton, sketching the methodological and philosophical issues, the volume comprises three segments: “Forgiveness Among the Greeks,” including papers by Konstan on a variety of ancient texts, Page duBois on Homer and Sophocles, and Kathryn Gutzwiller on Greek New Comedy; “Forgiveness Among the Romans,” including papers by Susanna Braund on Seneca, Kristina Milnor on the role of women, and Zsuzsanna Várhelyi on divine clemency; and the longest section, “Judaic and Christian Forgiveness,” comprising papers by Michael Morgan on ancient Judaism, Peter Hawkins on the Prodigal Son in Luke, Jennifer Knust on early Christianity, Ilaria Ramelli on patristic texts, and Jonathan Jacobson Maimonidesand Aquinas. Among the points argued by this impressive assemblage of contributors, a few stand out as pivotal for their collective intellectual venture. In her paper on Greek literature, Page duBois states with particular force a problem of translation that is alluded to in many of the papers: if we are too quick to render an ancient term, in this case the Greek sungnōmē, as “forgiveness” or some related term in our language, we merely create an anachronism, falsely imposing a modern emotional landscape upon an ancient culture and thus merely colonizing the past. The risks of such a procedure are made evident in the segment of the volume devoted to the Romans, where all three papers are quick to point out that clementia , the voluntary mitigation of penalties by a superior, is emphatically not forgiveness of one individual by another but rather a...