Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 74:1 (NA 2023)
Article: How To Live Well: Mimetic Ethics And Civic Education In Graeco-Roman Antiquity And Early Christianity
Author: Cornelis Bennema

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How To Live Well: Mimetic Ethics And Civic Education In Graeco-Roman Antiquity And Early Christianity1

Cornelis Bennema

Lecturer in New Testament
London School of Theology | Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of the Free State, S. Africa
[email protected]

Abstract

Mimesis played a crucial role in moral and civic education in Graeco-Roman antiquity. From classical Greek drama to Aristotle to the Graeco-Roman rhetorical traditions, mimetic ethics focuses on how personal example and imitation shaped people’s behaviour and character. Extended contact with the Graeco-Roman traditions led early Christianity to adopt the concept of mimesis in the overlapping spheres of family and education. Discipleship and citizenship intersect in that Christians are called to be good disciples or ‘citizens’ in God’s society. This study explores the Johannine, Pauline, and Petrine traditions and proposes that the mechanism of personal example and imitation regulates the ethical–political life of early Christians and instructs them to live well in both the church and society.

1. The Issue, Thesis, And Prolegomena

Life is a precious gift of indeterminate length, so we might as well seek to live well. Many pursue the good life in atomistic and hedonistic ways, but in antiquity the moral quest for the good life was set in a social–political framework, as this study will demonstrate. In Graeco-Roman antiquity, the main ethical quest was how to live well in the context of the Greek polis or Roman society. In terms of normative ethics, ‘How to live well?’ and ‘What is the good life?’ are questions that virtue ethics addresses. Virtue ethics stresses the character of a moral agent rather than duty to rules (deontology), the

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outcomes of actions (consequentialism) or social context (pragmatic ethics) as a driving force for ethical behaviour.

This study provides an ethical–political reading of how to live well as Christians and citizens. Alan Storkey notes an emerging consensus today that ‘religion and politics do not mix’, leading to a ‘Christian political vacuum’ where the political thought of many Christians is secular.2 At first sight, the New Testament seems uninterested in politics and society, instead prioritising theology, the kingdom of God, and the church. However, most Christians recognise that although the kingdom of God is not from this world, it nevertheless exists in it. Besides, humans are social beings and organise themselves in societies. ‘Society’ refers to a communi...