Handling moral infringement is complicated and this was as true in antiquity as it is today. Should one retaliate, demand compensation, be merciful, ignore the infringement, or forgive? Thomas Kazen and Rikard Roitto compare how Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians in antiquity navigated different ideas, practices, and rituals for moral repair. How did they think about morality and did this affect ideas about moral repair? What practices of moral repair did they use, within and beyond the court? In what different ways did they involve the gods in interpersonal conflicts through ritual? Insights from contemporary research on human behaviour guide the comparative work, since, as the authors argue, human moral behaviour and cognition is the result of both innate and cultural factors.

Interpersonal forgiveness and clemency do in some respects have very similar functions: By not retaliating or punishing a conflict is put to rest. However, the motivations behind the Jewish-Christian ideal of interpersonal forgiveness and the Roman ideal of clemency are quite different. Jesus Ben Sira, Jesus of Nazareth and others argue that only those who forgive will receive divine forgiveness. Seneca, on the other hand, argues for clemency as an expression of superior, even divine, power over others. The two motivations, in turn, reflect distinct social dynamics for the two forms of non-retaliatory behaviours. This paper discusses how the ethics of interpersonal forgiveness nurtures a culture of indirect reciprocity whereas the ethics of interpersonal clemency builds hierarchically organized cooperative networks.

Votive offerings and other dedications to gods were normally gifts that fulfilled vows or expressed gratitude. But human ingenuity knows no bounds, especially not in conflicts. We can therefore find several examples of ritual innovation among Jews, Christians, Greeks and Romans in Roman antiquity, where dedications of people and property to the gods functioned as aggressions to involve the gods in ongoing interpersonal conflicts.

Moral Infringement and Repair in Antiquity, is a series of publications related to a project on Dynamics of Moral Repair in Antiquity, run by Thomas Kazen and Rikard Roitto between 2017 and 2021, and funded by the Swedish Research Council, grant nr. 2016-02319. The volumes contain stand-alone articles and serve as supplements to the main outcome of the project, the volume Interpersonal Infringement and Moral Repair: Revenge, Compensation and Forgiveness in the Ancient World, forthcoming on Mohr Siebeck in 2023.

Supplement 2: Group Dynamics, contains four articles and chapters by Rikard Roitto, republished in accordance with the publishers' general conditions for author reuse, or by special permission. 

1. Rituals of Reintegration: Penance, Confession of Sins, Intercession 2. Reintegrative Shaming and a Prayer Ritual of Reintegration in Matthew 3. Enduring Shame as Costly Signalling 4. The Johannine Information War: A Social Network Analysis of the Information Flow Between Johannine Assemblies as Witnessed by 1-3 John