John’s Gospel opts for an adorable substitute. In his first chapter, Jesus is referred to as the “Lamb of God” or amnos tou theou (ὁ Ἀμνὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ). Like the Wedding at Cana, it’s another of John’s inventions that will echo for centuries in Christian art—in the Ghent Altarpiece, for example, which shows the holy blood draining from the chest of the still-living lamb directly into the Eucharistic chalice. It is the chalice of the Mass that holds the blood of Jesus to this day, just like the blood that once poured from the goat as the blood of Dionysus to become the Eucharist of raw flesh
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