There was a certain creditor... — The parable has some points of resemblance to that of the Two Debtors in Matthew 18:23. Here, however, the debts, though different, are not separated by so wide an interval as are the ten thousand talents and the hundred pence. The debts are both within the range of common human experience. The “pence “are, of course, the Roman denarii, worth about sevenpence-halfpenny each. The application of the parable treats the woman as a greater debtor than the Pharisee. She had committed greater sins. Each was equally powerless to pay the debt — i.e., to make atonement for his or her sins. Whatever hope either had lay in the fact that pardon was offered to both as a matter of free gift and bounty.
Frankly. — Better, freely-i.e., gratuitously, as an act of bounty. So Shakespeare —
“I do beseech your grace....
.... now to forgive me frankly.”
Henry VIII., Act ii., Scene 1.