Only in John’s Eucharist does trogon appear. Indeed, the only other instance of the verb trogon in the entire New Testament is in Matthew 24:38, in reference to the pagan feasting of the pre-Flood population “in the days of Noah.” Why would Jesus ask people to gnaw and munch on his flesh in such graphic, barbaric language? In The Dionysian Gospel, Dennis MacDonald believes the Greek of John points rather obviously to “Dionysian cult imagery,” “specifically the eating of the flesh and blood of the god and the immortality that initiates gain by such activity.”16 How could any Greek speaker of
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