A

July 19th

FORGIVE THEM BECAUSE THEY DON’T KNOW

“As Plato said, every soul is deprived of truth against its will. The

same holds true for justice, self-control, goodwill to others, and

every similar virtue. It’s essential to constantly keep this in your

mind, for it will make you more gentle to all.”

—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 7.63

s he wound his way up Via Dolorosa to the top of Calvary Hill, Jesus
(or Christus as he would have been known to Seneca and other
Roman contemporaries) had suffered immensely. He’d been beaten,
flogged, stabbed, forced to bear his own cross, and was set to be crucified
on it next to two common criminals. There he watched the soldiers roll dice
to see who would get to keep his clothes, listened as the people sneered and
taunted him.
Whatever your religious inclinations, the words that Jesus spoke next—
considering they came as he was subjected to unimaginable human
suffering—send chills down your spine. Jesus looked upward and said
simply, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
That is the same truth that Plato spoke centuries earlier and that Marcus
spoke almost two centuries after Jesus; other Christians must have spoken
this truth as they were cruelly executed by the Romans under Marcus’s
reign: Forgive them; they are deprived of truth. They wouldn’t do this if
they weren’t.
Use this knowledge to be gentle and gracious.