A History of Forgiveness

In 404 BC, Athens felt asparta after a long drawn out war. Socrates's connections to Chrisius is what led to him being put on trial for corrupting the youth and executed shortly thereafter. Forgiveness does not erase or annihilate the past, she says, it does not transform me into a blank slate. The forgiven past does not restore my innocence or make my mistakes disappear, but rather alters the ethical significance of these mistakes. And so alters the significance of the past itself.