2. The Latin Traditions
2.1. From the New Testament to the LatinRecognitions
Contemporary studies on recognition ignore the Latin background of
English, French, and German terminology. This chapter investigates
the Latin vocabulary, in particular the verbsrecognoscoandagnosco.
As elsewhere in the Greco-Roman world, the Latin terms have their
background in Greek and, to some extent, in Hebrew. For this reason,
onefirst needs to look at the Greek roots. As the main point is the
emergence of Latin religious concepts, their Greek and Hebrew ori-
gins are only explained briefly, relying on already existing lexical and
historical studies.
The Greek nounanagnorisis, discovery or recognition, is discussed
by Aristotle inPoetics1452a30–b19. In tragedy,anagnorisismeans‘a
change from ignorance to knowledge’, for instance, a situation in
which a father recognizes a stranger as his son.^1 In the Greek New
Testament, the verbanagnorizesthaioccurs only once (Acts 7:13) and
is translated into Latin bycognosco. The corresponding noun,ana-
gnosis, has the technical sense of‘reading’(Acts 13:15, 2 Cor. 3:14,
1 Tim. 4:13).
Acts 7:13 depicts an Aristotelian recognition scene, retelling the
Old Testament story of Joseph who, after becoming the Pharaoh’s
advisor in Egypt,first deals with his brothers without revealing his
true identity (Gen. 44). After that, however, Joseph tells his brothers
who he is. Both the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint (Gen 45:1,
Vulgate:agnitio mutua), and Acts 7:13 depict this event using the
(^1) Ricoeur 2005, 76. See Bro Larsen 2008 for more detail.