Μαθητής and Μιμητής: Exploring an Entangled Relationship

The precise relationship between μιμητής and μαθητής has been the source of scholarly debate for some time. The two major proposals of how to understand their relationship do not offer decisive evidence for their positions. In order to get beyond this impasse, this article looks at two sets of texts from the Common Era: texts where μιμητής occurs alone and texts in which both μιμητής and μαθητής occur. The contexts of both sets of texts are examined to discern if they reveal anything about the relationship between these terms in order to see which of these proposals (if any) are supported. Based on this data, preliminary conclusions about how to understand the relationship between these terms are offered.