the‘lord’or the‘established power’grants recognition to new aspirants
so that the event may be labelled as a downward one. In the historical
terminology of religious recognition, however, the servant normally
recognizes the lord‘upwardly’.
Within the big picture of upward religious recognition, numerous
qualifications and exceptions can be observed. The Roman legal
terminology, for instancefilium agnoscereand other similar expres-
sions, does not necessitate any‘upward’understanding of recognition.
The Aristoteliananagnorisiscan be understood to take place among
equals. While the LatinRecognitionsalludes to these meanings, its basic
idea of religious recognition deals with the paradigm of a servant
recognizing his or her lord or a child recognizing his or her parent.
This‘upward’paradigm is continued in Augustine (see section 2.2) and
medieval scholasticism (section 2.4). Some notable exceptions are found
in Thomas Aquinas, who uses the phrase‘recognize him who recog-
nizes her’, an expression containing both the upward and the downward
movement. Moreover, in his consideration of moral debt Thomas
comments on cases of honouring persons who are not above us.
In medieval and early modern texts, the upward recognition is
often mutual, which means in practice that there is a corresponding
‘downward’movement of the lord. This movement normally pre-
cedes the upward move, being thus an expectation rather than a
response. An important terminological feature is thatagnoscoand
recognoscoare normally reserved for the upward move, whereas the
downward side of mutuality is expressed by some other word. This
terminological issue should not, however, obscure the fact that the
entire event can be understood as one of mutual recognition. As we
understand its starting point as horizon of expectation rather than
actual recognition, the use of another term for this starting point can
be considered adequate. The terminology ofcommendatio(section
2.3) underlines this in a number of ways. In feudal law,se commen-
dareexpresses the act of a servant. In Latin religious texts, the lord
normally‘commends’the servant and the servant‘recognizes’the
lord. While this usage may have its background in the Vulgate, it also
adapts the feudal image of lord and servant to the religious tradition
of acknowledging God in terms of a mutual bond. Both‘upward’and
‘downward’moves are thus needed.
Recognition among equals is a central theme of ecumenism in the
twentieth century (section 3.6). In earlier religious texts, the horizon-
tal dimension seldom appears to be primary. The issue is complex,
Recognition in Religion 187