I've been meaning to ask this question since our second discussion on "The Aeneid." During Aeneas' tour through the underworld, the Trojan comes across an interesting scene:
"The king of these harsh realms is Rhadamanthus/ the Gnosian: he hears men's crimes and then/ chastises and compels confession for/ those guilts that anyone, rejoicing, hid-/but uselessely-within the world above,/ delaying his atonement till too late,/ beyond the time of death" (Book 6, 749-756).
I'm curious if anyone can commit on this conception of confession in terms of how it would relate to early Christian theology on the subject. I'm not sure when/if confession enters into the New Testament, but I was surprised to see this ritual in Aeschylus' writings. Does it have a Roman parallel?
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