St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 63:3 (2019) 261–276

A “Strange New Philosophy” of

Forgiveness: Insights from St John
Chrysostom on Forgiving the Unrepentant
Samuel Kaldas1
This paper is about “unconditional” or “unapologetic” forgiveness,
that is, the practice of forgiving wrongdoers who have not
apologized or otherwise shown remorse for their wrongdoings.
Most philosophers who have addressed this subject in recent years
have argued that unapologetic forgiveness is morally irresponsible
or incoherent, and that forgiveness only makes sense when the
wrongdoer has apologized.2 In particular, some have argued that
unapologetic forgiving shows an unhealthy lack of self-esteem on
the part of the forgiver; if someone has wronged us and refuses
to apologize, then we are obligated to resent them and withhold
forgiveness, as a way of re-asserting our self-worth against their
mistreatment. To forgive an unapologetic wrongdoer, they argue, is
to be so self-deprecatingly permissive that one really is just denying
or ignoring the fact that one has been wronged.
This argument has considerable appeal, especially because it
safeguards against the demeaning, moralizing pressure a victim
might feel to forgive someone in a situation where such forgiveness
1 Parts of this paper were presented at the “Justice, Mercy & Wellbeing: Interdisciplin-
ary Perspectives” conference at the Sydney College of Divinity in July 2016, and at
the “St Andrew’s Patristic Symposium on St John Chrysostom” held at St. Andrew’s
Greek Orthodox Theological College in September of the same year. I would like to
thank Fr Doru Costache, Dr Luke Russell, Dr Wendy Mayer, and Youstina Youssif
for helpful comments on the paper.
2 Some important statements of this view include Jeffrie Murphy, “Hatred: A Quali-
fied Defense,” in Forgiveness and Mercy, ed. Jeffrie G. Murphy and Jean Hampton
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 88–110; Pamela Hieronymi, “Ar-
ticulating an Uncompromising Forgiveness,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Re-
search 62.3 (2001): 529–55; and Richard Swinburne, Responsibility and Atonement
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).

261
262 ST VLADIMIR’S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

will probably enable further wrongdoing. Where the perpetrator

is considerably more powerful than the victim, this worry is even
more pronounced: in such cases, forgiving the wrongdoer seems to
amount to an extraordinary denial of the victim’s moral worth (that
is, of their right not to be wronged).
Christianity is usually interpreted as endorsing exactly this kind of
potentially problematic forgiveness: unreserved, unconditional forgiveness
of one’s enemies and active persecutors. While there is some debate among
Christians as to whether the New Testament really enjoins unconditional
forgiveness (and if it does, precisely what kind of forgiveness it enjoins), a large
and very old section of Christian moral tradition has held that Christians
ought to forgive those who wrong them immediately, no matter grievous the
wrong committed, and regardless of whether or not they have apologized.3
St John Chrysostom was an exemplar of this tradition, in his life as
much as in his teaching. His views on forgiveness are neatly summarized
in his comment on 1 Samuel/1 Kingdoms 24:1–7, where a beleaguered
David finds his mortal enemy Saul asleep in a cave and spares his life. For
Chrysostom, this was more than a simple act of mercy: it was a demonstration
of a “strange and new kind of philosophy”;4 the very “philosophy” that was
later expressed in Christ’s commandments to love our enemies and turn
the other cheek. And Chrysostom can hardly be accused of delivering this
hard teaching from a comfortable ivory tower: some of his most powerful
exhortations to forgive were written while he was being driven by a band of
abusive soldiers at the behest of a paranoid Empress into a torturous exile
that would cause his premature death shortly afterwards.5 To put it mildly,
he did not lack opportunities to practice what he preached.

3 A recent, helpful survey of the various interpretations of the Christian teaching on

this question is provided by Heidi Chamberlin Giannini, “Hope as Grounds for For-
giveness: A Christian Argument for Universal, Unconditional Forgiveness,” Journal
of Religious Ethics 45.1 (2017): 59.
4 Καινόν καὶ παράδοξον φιλοσοφίας τρόπον (St John Chrysostom, To Those Who Had
Not Come to the Assembly 7 [PG 51:184 / NPNF 1.09]).
5 Philip Schaff, “Prolegomena: The Life and Work of St. John Chrysostom,” in Nicene
and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church—Volume IX, 3–22. Chrysostom’s
Letters to Olympias and his treatise That No One Can Harm the Man Who Does Not
Harm Himself likely date to this last, bitter chapter of Chrysostom’s life.
A “Strange New Philosophy” of Forgiveness 263

That Chrysostom calls this way of living a philosophy suggests that

he views it as a kind of moral wisdom, a code of conduct built on
sound and rational principles. But, for the reasons we have just seen,
the consensus among moral philosophers today is that to be overly
forgiving—particularly to offenders who have not apologized or
repented—is morally unwise, and even irrational.6 The question
that concerns us here then, is this: does the Christian duty of
unconditional forgiveness, of the kind exemplified by Chrysostom,
encourage victims to demean or degrade themselves in morally
questionable ways? I will examine this question with reference to
St John Chrysostom’s teachings on forgiveness and resentment. The
purpose is not to mine Chrysostom’s texts for arguments in defense
of unconditional forgiveness. (Quite apart from any religious
concerns, unconditional forgiveness has already received several able
and insightful defenses from other philosophers.)7 My intention
here is rather to shed light on why the considerations that have
swayed some contemporary philosophers away from unconditional
forgiveness do not seem to have troubled Chrysostom. In this
way, we can move toward an understanding of precisely where the
deeper disagreement lies between the modern moral philosophers
who reject unconditional forgiveness, and the section of Christian
tradition that views it as a divine duty.
To anticipate, I will argue that we cannot resolve the disagreement
by claiming that Chrysostom and modern philosophers simply
mean different things by the word “forgiveness.” We shall see that
like his modern counterparts, Chrysostom carefully distinguishes
forgiveness from closely related phenomena like excusing or
justifying, and most importantly, insists that forgiveness must
6 As one commentator put it, “the mainstream of philosophical reflection on forgive-
ness over the past forty years … has insisted that forgiveness is inappropriate unless
the wrongdoer is apologetic,” Glen Pettigrove, Forgiveness and Love (Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2012), 104.
7 See particularly, Eve Garrard and David McNaughton, “In Defence of Uncondition-
al Forgiveness,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103 (2003): 39–60; Glen Petti-
grove, Forgiveness and Love (Oxford University Press, 2012), and Heidi C. Giannini,
“Hope as Grounds for Forgiveness.”
264 ST VLADIMIR’S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

never deny or ignore the wrongness of the offense, and that it

should not involve a denial of the forgiver’s self-worth. Despite
this, Chrysostom insists that the victim can and should forgive
their persecutor, whether or not they have repented. He holds
this view, I shall argue, because while he does not differ from his
modern counterparts in his understanding of what forgiveness is, he
does seem to disagree with them about self-worth itself: where it is
grounded, and how it should be asserted. We shall see that forgiving
unconditionally in Chrysostom’s view—far from demeaning or
undermining the victim’s self-worth—is the height of godly dignity
and self-assertion.
I proceed as follows: in the first section, I lay out the modern
“self-esteem objection” to unconditional forgiveness, paying
particular attention to the definition of forgiveness it rests on,
and the conditions under which it says forgiveness is desirable.
The second section introduces Chrysostom’s endorsements of
unconditional forgiveness. After showing first that Chrysostom has
the same definition of forgiveness as the contemporary objectors,
I draw attention to those parts of his writings on forgiveness that
deal explicitly with the victim’s self-worth, and show that it is his
concept of eschatologically grounded self-worth that allows him
to enjoin unconditional forgiveness without fear of denying it.
The conclusion offers some thoughts on how modern objectors to
unconditional forgiveness might respond to Chrysostom’s view.
The Self-Respect Objection to Unconditional Forgiveness

1.1—What Is Forgiveness?
Nearly all contemporary philosophers define forgiveness as the
giving up of “resentment” toward someone who has wronged us.8
When someone wrongs me, I come to resent them; that is, to feel
8 This has been the case at least since Bishop Butler in the 18th century (although I
argue here that Chrysostom understands forgiveness in essentially the same way). See
Joseph Butler, “Sermon VIII: Upon Resentment of Wrongs” and “Sermon IX: Upon
Forgiveness of Injuries,” Fifteen Sermons (London: James & John Knapton, 1726):
137–54, 155–77.
A “Strange New Philosophy” of Forgiveness 265

a sort of moral anger toward them. I can be said to have forgiven

them only when I no longer feel this way toward them.
Importantly though, not just any way of getting rid of resentment
counts as forgiveness. If I change my mind about the offense, and
decide that given the circumstances it was actually the right thing
to do, or that it was an honest mistake, then I will stop resenting the
person who harmed me, but I will only do so because I no longer
believe that there is any wrongdoing left to forgive.9 By definition,
forgiving means willingly giving up resentment toward a wrongdoer
without changing one’s judgment on the wrongness of their deed.
We must be able to say, “What you did to me was wrong, and you
should not have done it, but I forgive you anyway.” This is essential,
because it is precisely this that makes forgiveness such a puzzling
moral concept: it is a positive response to genuine wrongs, which
do not seem to warrant a positive response.
1.2—Resentment and Self-Respect
This insistence that only genuine wrongs can be forgiven lies at the
heart of the arguments against unconditional forgiveness. I will
focus here on two important critics of unconditional forgiveness,
Jeffrie Murphy and Pamela Hieronymi. In their view, forgiving
an unapologetic wrongdoer is a way of denying or ignoring the
wrongness of the offense. This is because, for these philosophers,
there is an important link between resentment and the victim’s
dignity or self-respect: resentment is a kind of moral self-defense
mechanism, a way of reasserting the victim’s self-worth when the
wrongdoer’s actions deny it.
In this view, the real sting of a wrongdoing is not the damage to
my body or possessions it causes, but the insult or degradation to
which it subjects me. Murphy puts this particularly lucidly:
One reason we so deeply resent moral injuries done to us
is not simply that they hurt us in some tangible or sensible

9 Cf. Kolnai’s much more detailed treatment of similar kinds of “false forgiving” in
“Forgiveness,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society New Series (74), 1973–1974:
91–106.
266 ST VLADIMIR’S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

way; it is because such injuries are also messages—symbolic

communications. They are ways a wrongdoer has of saying “I
count but you do not,” “I can use you for my purposes,” or “I
am here up high and you are there down below.” Intentional
wrongdoing insults and attempts (sometimes successfully) to
degrade us—and thus it involves a kind of injury that is not
merely tangible and sensible.10
When someone wrongs me, they cause me a special kind of harm quite
distinct from the harm they cause to my person or property. Damage
to my body or possessions can be done by anything: inanimate
objects, animals, accidents. But a moral injury of the kind Murphy
refers to here can only be caused by a moral agent: someone who
deliberately and intentionally acts in a way that denies my self-worth.
Now, for Murphy and Hieronymi, when we are treated this way, there
is only one rational response: resentment. Resentment is a kind of moral
outrage or anger directed at the perpetrator of a demeaning, degrading
wrong. When we judge that we have been wronged, Hieronymi writes, “our
first response is, and ought to be, anger and resentment.”11 The reason we
ought to resent those who wrong us in this way is that the message they send
in their wrongdoing is not simply demeaning, it is also false: it says that
treating me in this way is acceptable, when it clearly is not. If I care about
the moral truth of the matter, which is that I ought not to be treated in this
way, then I will resent the wrongdoer. As Hieronymi puts it:
Resentment affirms what the [claim made by the wrongdo-
ing] denies—its wrongness and the victim’s worth. And so, in
a way, resentment is a fight response. It fights the meaning of
the past event, affirming its wrongness and the moral signifi-
cance of the victim and the wrongdoer.12
Resentment, in this view, is not only the natural reaction to being wronged,
but also the morally appropriate reaction; an essential “emotional defence
10 “Articulating an Uncompromising Forgiveness,” Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research 62.3 (2001): 547. Cf. also Hieronymi, “Uncompromising Forgiveness,”
546–47.
11 Hieronymi, “Uncompromising Forgiveness,” 530; my emphasis.
12 Hieronymi, “Uncompromising Forgiveness,” 547. Cf. Murphy, “Hatred: A Qualified
Defense,” 93.
A “Strange New Philosophy” of Forgiveness 267

mechanism” designed to pressure the wrongdoer into renouncing his false

and demeaning claim against my self-worth.13
It is important to keep in mind, though, that for Hieronymi at
least, resenting someone does not preclude loving them. “We can be
very angry with those we love—while loving them,” she insists. On
her view, resentment does not imply anything “like malice or a desire
to destroy or to triumph over the person.” And so, “while anger and
love are compatible, anger and forgiveness are not compatible.”14
So Hieronymi is open to the possibility that, in the midst of our
resentment, we can also feel goodwill toward those who wrong us.
1.3—The Self-Respect Objection
For Murphy and Hieronymi then, resenting a wrongdoer is the only
morally appropriate response to being wronged by them. At what point,
though, does it become appropriate to forgive someone? On this view, the
only good reason for not resenting someone who has wronged me is that
they have apologized. This is because an apology effectively withdraws the
threatening claim made against my self-esteem. “Once the offender himself
renounces the deed,” writes Hieronymi,
it may no longer stand as a threat to either the public understanding
of right and wrong, to his worth, or to one’s own … The author has
retracted his statement, and anger loses its point.15
After an apology, there is no need for me to be resentful in order to
reassert the moral truth of the situation; I can forgive the offender
without running the risk of seeming to the world to deny or ignore
the wrongdoing. This is the standard way that we come to forgive
someone: they apologize, and in response, we stop resenting them.
But what if the wrongdoer is completely unrepentant? What if
they stick by their misdeed and reaffirm whenever possible their
insulting and threatening claim against my self-worth? In Murphy
and Hieronymi’s view, it does not make moral sense to forgive such a
person. In their view, forgiving an unrepentant wrongdoer, far from being

13 Murphy, “Hatred: A Qualified Defense,” 93.

14 Hieronymi, “Uncompromising Forgiveness,” 539f (original emphasis).
15 Hieronymi, “Uncompromising Forgiveness,” 548.
268 ST VLADIMIR’S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

the height of moral wisdom, amounts to a kind of moral lie: ultimately, we

can only forgive an unrepentant wrongdoer if we deny the wrongness of
their actions. If a victim truly judges that they have been wronged, then the
morally and psychologically appropriate response is to resent the wrongdoer
unless the wrongdoer renounces their deed. As Murphy puts it, “a person
who does not resent moral injuries done to him … is almost necessarily a
person lacking in self-respect.”16 To forgive a persistent offender necessarily
means denying some aspect of the act’s wrongness and ignoring one’s own
self-worth.
Chrysostom and the Self-Respect Objection
With the self-respect objection in place, we can now to turn to the
moral philosophy of St John Chrysostom. Unsurprisingly for a
Christian bishop, Chrysostom firmly believes that Christians ought
to forgive even those who have not apologized. But how might he
respond to the objections raised by Murphy and Hieronymi, namely,
that forgiving unapologetic wrongdoers ignores the wrongness of
the offense and indicates a lack of self-respect on the forgiver’s part?
Obviously, Chrysostom never addresses this question explicitly in
its modern form, but I will attempt to show here that despite the
vast historical and cultural gap between Chrysostom and modern
philosophers of forgiveness, his moral teaching does explicitly
address these concerns, in a way that suggests they were important to
his audience as well. When this is done, I will conclude by reflecting
on Chrysostom’s wider “worldview,” in an attempt to discover how
it allows him to accommodate unrepentant forgiveness in ways that
Hieronymi and Murphy cannot.
2.1—Chrysostom’s Concept of Forgiveness
The first step, however, must be to ensure that Chrysostom
understands forgiveness and resentment in ways compatible with
the modern debate; if he does not, no conversation between
Chrysostom’s ancient view and the modern one will be possible.
16 Jeffrie Murphy, “Forgiveness and Resentment,” in Jeffrie Murphy & Jean Hampton,
Forgiveness and Mercy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988),14.
A “Strange New Philosophy” of Forgiveness 269

What does Chrysostom mean by “forgiveness”? As a general

rule, Chrysostom understands the act of “forgiving” (ἀφεῖναι)
a wrongdoer as the giving up of anger (ὀργή) and resentment
(μνησικακία, lit. “remembrance of wrongs”) toward them.17 In an
important homily, Chrysostom claims that when we fail to forgive
our enemies, we are “conquered … by wrath (ὑπὸ τῆς ὀργῆς),” but
if we forgive them, then we become victorious by “expelling wrath
and resentment (τὴν ὀργὴν καὶ τὴν μνησικακίαν ἐκβαλών).”18 Like
modern philosophers, then, Chrysostom assumes that forgiving
our enemy requires the expulsion of our negative emotions toward
them. For Chrysostom, expelling these poisonous emotions is one
of the chief motivations to forgive in the first place: “For if hell
did not threaten the resentful,” he writes, “yet for the very torment
resulting from the [resentment] itself we ought to forgive the
offenses of those who have aggrieved us.”19 So Chrysostom seems
to agree with modern philosophers like Hieronymi and Murphy
about what forgiveness is: namely, giving up resentment.20
But Chrysostom has a very different view of when—under what
conditions—a victim ought to forgive a wrongdoer: he clearly
advocates unconditional, unapologetic forgiveness. He repeatedly
insists, in fact, that we should strive to overcome our anger and
make moves toward reconciliation before our enemy repents.21 In
his twentieth homily On the Statues, Chrysostom argues that we
lose the reward of forgiveness if we wait for our enemy to come
asking for it; but if, instead,

17 E.g. On the Statues 20.6, 7 and 8 (PG 49:205–10 / NPNF 1.09). Cf. Homilies on
Matthew 19.9 (“by the command to forgive others, setting us free from all revengeful
passion” [NPNF 1.10]).
18 To Those Who Had Not Attended 6, 7 (PG 51:182 / NPNF 1.09)
19 On the Statues 20.
20 It is worth noting that the connection between resentment and forgiveness is even
clearer in Greek than it is in English, for Chrysostom can use the same verb (ἀφεῖναι)
to refer both to forgiving someone a debt or trespass (e.g., Ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα
ἡμῶν [Mt 6:12]), and to giving up one’s own resentment (e.g., Τὴν ὀργὴν ἄφες! [On
the Statues 20 [PG 49:202]).
21 E.g., On the Statues 20.8, 12, 14, 18 (NPNF 1.09).
270 ST VLADIMIR’S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

When no one entreats, when not even the man who has done
the injury approaches or solicits you, you yourself dismiss-
ing from your thoughts all shame, and all delay, run forward
freely to the injurer, and do quell anger entirely, the good deed
becomes wholly your own … 22
The height of moral wisdom, for Chrysostom, is to rid ourselves
of anger and resentment before our enemies make any attempt at
reconciliation.
2.2—Chrysostom on Forgiveness and Self-Esteem
For upholders of the contemporary consensus against unconditional
forgiveness (like Hieronymi and Murphy), Chrysostom’s
exhortation to forgive an unrepentant enemy is ethically suspect.
If resentment is a way of re-asserting our moral worth against the
degrading message implied by the offense, then to forgive with
reckless abandon as Chrysostom recommends is to forget our
own worth. In his zeal to promote the Gospel’s ideals, it might be
objected, Chrysostom has effectively encouraged his hearers to
affirm and assent to the wrongdoer’s cruel denial of their self-worth.
In response, it is worth noting first that in his treatments of
forgiveness, Chrysostom does not ignore the degrading effect of
moral injuries on the victim, and particularly the threat such injuries
pose their self-worth. In fact, Chrysostom is keenly aware that
resentment is often, if not always, caused precisely by the sense of
insult and moral injury implied by a wrongdoing. For instance, he
takes particular note of Christ’s command to turn the other cheek:
“whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also”
(Mt 5:39). Chrysostom insists that Christ chose this illustration
precisely because it is “the extremest insult, and … that which seems to
be of all blows most opprobrious, the blow on the cheek, so full of all
insolence.”23 The command to turn the other cheek, on Chrysostom’s
reading, is a command to bear insult willingly from all.

22 On the Statues 20.8 (NPNF 1.09). For consistency, I have changed “thou/thy” to
“you/your,” “hath” to “has,” etc.
23 Homilies on Matthew 18.1 (NPNF 1.10).
A “Strange New Philosophy” of Forgiveness 271

If Chrysostom is aware that wrongdoings threaten our self-worth,

why does he encourage us to be unresentful in the face of threats like
this to our character? The answer lies in the fact that Chrysostom has
a strikingly different view than Murphy and Hieronymi about what
affirms and what degrades a victim’s self-worth. In Chrysostom’s
view, enduring public insult without resentment actually affirms the
victim’s self-worth, and sends a positive moral message to counter
the wrongdoer’s degrading one.
We can see this, for example, when Chrysostom points out to
his hearers that by failing to resent their enemies, they will greatly
annoy them and also win the sympathy of onlookers. If you respond
to insults with more insults, he exhorts his hearer, you will “seem to
be speaking in return as if stung,” but if you react peaceably, you will
deprive [the insulter] of that [which] he desires most, you
bereave him of everything, by holding him thus cheap, and
showing him … [to be] a child rather than a man; and you
indeed have gained the reputation of a wise man, and him you
do invest with the character of a noisome beast.24
For Chrysostom then, failing to resent a wrongdoer does not mean
assenting to their degrading denial of our self-worth at all; on the
contrary, there is something attractively assertive about someone
who can laugh off even grievous insults.25
But Chrysostom also argues that forgiving persistent persecutors
affirms the victim’s value in an even stronger way. Forgiving the
unrepentant, he asserts, demonstrates that our self-esteem is
24 Homilies on Romans, Hom. 22, on Rom 12:21, 22. Chrysostom comes dangerously close here
to what Hieronymi would describe as “denigrat[ing] the wrongdoer so that his claims are
not threat” (“Uncompromising Forgiveness,” 547), and thus ignoring the moral agency of the
wrongdoer. But this is just Chrysostom’s rhetorical flair; as we shall see presently, he takes the
moral agency of wrongdoers very seriously indeed.
25 On this point, Chrysostom finds (in part) an unlikely ally in Friedrich Nietzsche:
“To be unable to take his enemies, his misfortunes and even his misdeeds seriously
for long—that is the sign of strong, rounded natures with a superabundance of a
power which is flexible, formative, healing and can make one forget … A man like
this shakes from him, with one shrug, many worms which would have burrowed into
another man …” On the Genealogy of Morality, tr. Carol Diethe, ed. Keith Ansell-
Pearson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 22.
272 ST VLADIMIR’S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

unassailable, because it is grounded not in this life, but in the life to

come. When you “bless those who curse you,” Chrysostom writes,
… you will make, both the abashing of your adversaries hereby,
and instructing of them by your actions that you are travel-
ing to another life; for if [your adversary] see you joyous and
elevated from suffering ill, he will see clearly from the actions
that you have other hopes greater than those of this life.26
In other words, when we do not resent those who wrong us, we
manifest or enact our eschatological value; we show that our self-
esteem is not rooted in this life, but that of the coming age.
Clearly then, Chrysostom does not think forgiving the
unrepentant involves denying our own moral worth; quite the
opposite. But Hieronymi and Murphy (and arguably common-
sense) provide us with compelling reasons to disagree. After all,
Chrysostom’s ideal Christian must still allow her enemy to wreak
havoc on her person, reputation, and possessions, without feeling a
hint of resentment in protest. Surely, Murphy and Hieronymi might
object, failing to resent such damage to one’s body and possessions
indicates an unhealthy lack of self-esteem on the victim’s part!
In response though, we must point to the fact that Chrysostom’s
whole “philosophy of forgiveness” is built on a bedrock of
Christianized Stoicism, according to which the only true good is
having a righteous character, and on which harboring resentment
is far more damaging to a victim than any possible wrongdoing.27
Since earthly “goods” like wealth and bodily health are at best,
irrelevant to our quest for virtue (and in fact more likely to harm
than help us), Chrysostom insists that damage done to one’s body or
possessions is not really damage at all.28 In fact, Chrysostom thinks
this is particularly clear in cases where we are demeaned or degraded
by someone else’s actions: when we are insulted, not only is no actual
harm done to us, but the insult aids our quest for righteousness
26 Homilies on Romans, Hom. 12, introduction (NPNF 1.11), emphasis added.
27 See, for instance, Epictetus’ Enchiridion Book I.
28 See Chrysostom’s treatise That No One Can Harm the Man Who Does Not Harm
Himself (NPNF 1.09).
A “Strange New Philosophy” of Forgiveness 273

by teaching us the virtues of detachment and longsuffering.29 It is

holding on to resentment that truly degrades us.30
For Chrysostom then, there is nothing self-soiling or undignified
about happily allowing men to carry off one’s possessions, or harm
one’s body, even though in doing this they inflict just the kind of
degrading “moral injuries” which Hieronymi and Murphy consider
to be the justification for resentment. In Chrysostom’s view, our
self-esteem is grounded eschatologically, in “the world to come,”
and is therefore impervious to any attack by earthly enemies.
Unconditional forgiveness is simply what it looks like to recognize
our worth as eternal and unassailable.
2.3—Denying the Wrongness?
This last aspect of Chrysostom’s view opens him up to another
charge: namely, that his view of forgiveness amounts to denying the
wrongness of the wrongdoing, and so fails to be a genuine account
of forgiveness. This is certainly a tempting interpretation, given that
Chrysostom tends to speak of no real harm being done by robbery,
slander, or even murder.31 If no harm is done in cases of putative
wrongdoing, then what is left to forgive?
Again however, Chrysostom anticipates this problem. For
example, he notes explicitly that the Gospel commandment to
forgive others their trespasses applies only to genuine wrongs; we
cannot, he insists, escape the commandment by appealing to the
fact that we are being persecuted unjustly:

29 “But were you deprived of character? … Your condition is in no way worsened by this,
if you practice self-command. But if you suffer no grievance, why are you angry with
him that has done you no harm, but has even benefited you?” Homilies on Matthew
87. 3 (NPNF 1.10).
30 E.g., “For you suppose that you are paying [your enemy] back the injury; but you are
first tormenting yourself, and setting up your rage as an executioner within you in
every part, and tearing up your own bowels. For what can be more wretched than a
man perpetually angry?” On the Statues 20.6 (NPNF 1.09).
31 E.g., “For were he even to whet his sword against you, and to stain his right hand in
your life-blood, it is not you that he has done any harm to, but himself that he has
butchered …” (Homilies on Romans, Hom. 22 [NPNF 11]). See also No One Can
Harm the Man 1–4 (NPNF 9).
274 ST VLADIMIR’S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

For what can you have to say? That you have wrongfully
endured some ill of your neighbour? For these only are tres-
passes, since if it be done with justice, the act is not a trespass.32
So obeying this commandment (which applies to unrepentant
wrongdoers as much as apologetic ones) cannot involve justifying
or excusing the wrongdoing: we cannot escape the force of the
commandment by saying, “But what they did to me was wrong!” On the
contrary, the commandment only applies when the act is really unjust.
Chrysostom provides a more detailed response to this problem in
his treatise to show that No One Can Harm the Man who Does Not
Harm Himself. After arguing that murder, slander, theft, and the
like can do no real harm to a righteous man, Chrysostom imagines
his reader objecting:
What is the purpose then … of penalties and punishments?
What is the purpose of hell? What is the purpose of such great
threatenings, if no one is either injured or injures?33
In modern terms, this hypothetical objector is accusing Chrysostom
of excusing wrongdoers; of denying the moral truth that culpable
wrong occurs whenever someone robs, slanders or murders.
Chrysostom’s response is subtle, but insightful: “Why do you
confuse the argument? For I did not say that no one injures (ἀδικεῖ),
but that no one is injured (ἀδικεῖται).”34 In other words, just because
wrongdoers necessarily fail to actually harm the victim does not
change the fact that they tried to. An attempted murder is made
no less heinous by the fact that, unbeknownst to the would-be
killer, his gun was empty. In this sense, on the level of the soul, the
perpetrator’s soul is at far greater risk of damage than the victim’s.
What this shows is simply that Chrysostom’s “strange new philosophy”
of forgiveness does not deny or ignore that deeds which require
forgiveness are often heinous and morally deplorable. In exhorting us to
forgive our unapologetic persecutors, Chrysostom is not instructing us
to minimize, justify or otherwise “excuse” the deeds we are forgiving.
32 Homilies on Matthew 19. 9 (NPNF 1.10), my emphasis.
33 No One Can Harm the Man 4 (NPNF 1.09).
34 No One Can Harm the Man 4 (PG 52:464).
A “Strange New Philosophy” of Forgiveness 275

Conclusion
We have seen then that Chrysostom’s moral philosophy asserts
something that Murphy and Hieronymi consider impossible:
namely, that we can forgive unrepented wrongs without denying
our own worth or the wrongness of the offence. I would like to
conclude by looking more closely at where the disagreement lies and
how deeply it runs, by considering what Murphy and Hieronymi
might say in response to a view like Chrysostom’s.
Helpfully, both Murphy and Hieronymi comment that there are
situations where forgiving the unrepentant might make moral sense.
In both cases, these are situations where the moral worth of the
victim is secured by some powerful external source, that removes
the need for any self-assertion on the part of the victim themselves.
Hieronymi, for example, suggests that forgiving the unrepentant
might be possible “in cases in which the one offended receives strong
community support.”35And Murphy, after arguing that resentment
is necessary to defend our self-esteem, briefly comments that this
necessity only arises from our reliance upon social relationships; if
we had something beyond the social world to safeguard our self-
esteem, resentment would not be necessary. Interestingly enough,
he takes Jesus as an example:
It may not be too difficult to ignore insults and injuries from mere
human beings if one, being the Son of God, has a rather more impres-
sive reference class from which to draw one’s self-esteem.36
In these cases, community support or one’s heavenly origins do
the moral work that a victim’s resentment is ordinarily supposed
to do: reasserting the victim’s value against the threat posed to it
by a wrongdoing. But from what we have seen, this is precisely
what Chrysostom thinks a victim’s virtue does: a virtuous person
is impervious to all moral injuries precisely because his value is
eschatologically guaranteed in heaven; to paraphrase St Paul, a
virtuous person’s “life is hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3).

35 Hieronymi, “Uncompromising Forgiveness,” 553.

36 Murphy, “Hatred: A Qualified Defense,” 94.
276 ST VLADIMIR’S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

What this suggests is that the two different views about forgiveness
we have considered here—Chrysostom’s and Hieronymi/Murphy’s—do
not differ greatly in their understandings of forgiveness and resentment.
Rather, what makes the difference is their belief (or not) in the unassailable,
“eschatological” value of human beings. Put bluntly, the difference
between the Christian Chrysostom and these secular philosophers is that
Chrysostom believes in Heaven, while the others do not. This is more
significant than it sounds, for if the Christian ideal rests centrally on the
hope of the resurrection, then perhaps we ought to admit that in one sense,
the modern philosophical consensus against unconditional forgiveness
is correct. If the Gospel is not true, Chrysostom’s calls for unconditional
forgiveness are indeed reckless and morally degrading. And this is just
to affirm with St Paul that “if Christ is not risen … we are of all men the
most pitiable” (1 Cor 15:17–9); to live as a Christian is to assume a grave
and costly moral risk which only faith in Christ—not human reason or
philosophy—can render coherent.
As a final note, however, we ought not suppose that Chrysostom’s
“strange new philosophy” of forgiveness rests only on the hope of
a distant, future resurrection which will right all wrongs when it
finally comes at the end of ages. On the contrary, for Chrysostom,
inasmuch as we live in Christ now, we are in heaven already: “For
what care I about Heaven,” he wrote, “ … when I myself am become
a Heaven?”37 And it is precisely in forgiving our enemies that we
can enter into the Heaven of life with Christ even now on the earth.
It was Christ himself who provided us the ultimate example of this
philosophy in action. As Chrysostom put it,
You are a disciple of Him Who desired the salvation even of
them that crucified Him, Who said upon the Cross itself,
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Lk
23:34). You are the servant of Him Who healed him that
smote Him, Who upon the Cross itself crowned the man who
had scorned Him.38

37 Homilies on Hebrews 16.7 (NPNF 1.14).

38 Homilies on Romans 21, verse 13 (NPNF 1.11).