‘Rise, Kill and Eat!’—A Missing Dionysian Link in the Acts of the Apostles?

Abstract

Abstract It has long been suggested that via a sequence of running motifs, the author of Luke–Acts plays upon a perceived analogy between early Christianity and the Dionysian cult. Scholars often claim that Luke modelled the unconverted Paul on the persecuting King Pentheus in Euripides’ Bacchae, not only because of the pattern of opposition to a new religious movement, but also because of specific wording and imagery in several narratives, particularly the Damascus Road vision in Acts 9:1–9. Peter, however, is rarely read in such terms. One reason for this is that although aspects of his broader characterisation fit Penthean themes, as do points of detail in some passages, his corresponding vision in Acts 10:9–16, whilst ‘oppositional’ in general terms, is not felt to carry any specifically Dionysian overtones. This tends to leave Paul as the sole ‘Pentheus’. Yet Peter’s vision, with its alarming meal of live animals arguably boasts a Bacchic motif of similar strength, pressing its parity to the Pauline account. I suggest that this new connection not only makes the Lukan ‘parallelisation’ more thoroughgoing but shows how a Dionysian intertexture was felt to be particularly suitable for capturing the sense of perplexity, menace, and personal undoing evident in the two visionary encounters.