There are ideas, even relatively simply ones, that seem self-evident until one takes a closer look, and then all sorts of complications arise. Saint Augustine famously asked: “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one who asks, I do not know” (Confessions 11.14.17: quid est ergo tempus? si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio). I am told that Jaakko Hintikka discovered a similar puzzlement in what might seem to be a far simpler question, namely, what is the height of Mount Everest? Most people are sure they know what the question means, but when asked whether the height includes the snowcap or not, and if so at which season, and whether it is measured from sea level, and if so at what place (as this varies), or rather in respect to the center of the earth, and so forth, perplexity sets in. Forgiveness too is subject to such confusion, or perhaps it is better to call it difference of opinion. In what follows, I set forth some of the features that are essential if an act of reconciliation is to be recognized as forgiveness; to the extent that my discussion lays any claim to originality, it is only in the emphasis on those aspects that are particularly relevant to distinguishing modern forgiveness from ancient practices of conciliation.