In this book, eminent scholars of classical antiquity and ancient andmedieval Judaism and Christianity explore the nature and place offorgiveness in the premodern Western world. They discuss whetherthe concept of forgiveness, as it is often understood today, was absentor, at all events, more restricted in scope than has been commonlysupposed, and what related ideas (such as clemency or reconciliation)may have taken the place of forgiveness. An introductorychapter reviews the conceptual territory of forgiveness and illuminatesthe potential breadth of the idea, enumerating the importantquestions a theory of the subject should explore. The followingchapters examine forgiveness in the contexts of classical Greece andRome; the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, and Moses Maimonides; andthe New Testament, the church fathers, and Thomas Aquinas.