MIMESIS. - From μίμησις, it means imitation. It is a concept on which, probably already in the oldest historical cultures, the interpretation and motivation of cultural rites and religious prescriptions were based.
In Greek thought the concept of mimesis is further differentiated and determined in its cosmological-metaphysical, moral, and religious applications. Plato defines worldly things as imitations (μίμηται, ἐκεῖναι) of invisible realities, ultimately of the idea of the good (Tim., 38 a, 48 e). The analogous determination of moral virtues as imitation of God (Theaet., 176) is closely connected with this cosmological doctrine. In Stoicism, alongside the more characteristic conception of ἀκολουθειασμός, the idea of the imitation of God or of divinized nature is taken up again (Cicero, Tus., V, 70; Seneca, De ira, II, 16 and Epist., 95, 50). The concept revives in Christianity, where, however, the imitation of God in spiritual life is motivated by the interior assimilation to the divine nature effected by Grace.