theophage

plural theophages

1. A god-eater, one who eats a god.

   The theophage who had devoured Deimos, the Greek god of terror, was flying away with the little girl I cared about, and I was totally okay with that. A pair of ruby eyes caught the light in the shadows across the street. A bouda[…]

   2021 January 12, Ilona Andrews, Blood Heir, NYLA, →ISBN

   1 more example

   […] "He's an immortal, a theophage like I am, like Ka'an and Medur -- gods. We were all mortal once, but he's forgotten that. He's eaten all the rest, and made the world think he's the only one. Now he's going to go eat Ka'an, and then he'll eat us."

   2006 August 1, Jesse Hajicek, The God Eaters, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 355

2. typically derogatoryOne who believes that the Eucharist is the body of God, and consumes it.

   At this time Protestants particularly identified Catholics as cannibals because Catholics insisted on Christ's real presence in the host, devoured Him raw (not cooked) and as 'theophages' also necessarily became 'theochèzes' (ibid.:239).

   2011, Heike Behrend, Resurrecting Cannibals: The Catholic Church, Witch-hunts, and the Production of Pagans in Western Uganda, Boydell & Brewer Ltd, →ISBN, page 49

   2 more examples

   […] his eucharistic theology would presumably make unadulterated theophages (God-eaters) of us all. This in turn exposes a more general flaw in Eutychianism : a failure to make sufficient allowance for the distinctiveness of three the consubstantial Trinity. persons of We must also consider[…]

   2007, Ben Quash, Michael Ward, Heresies and how to Avoid Them: Why it Matters what Christians Believe, SPCK Publishing, page 48

   […] whereby Roman Catholics are cannibals, 'anthropophages' (anthropophagists), 'theophages' (god-eaters), 'theologastres' (god-gobblers), even 'Polyphages diffamées' (vilely excessive eaters). extremists also often sexualized their attacks on Roman Catholics, for instance: […]

   2014, Elizabeth Guild, Unsettling Montaigne: Poetics, Ethics and Affect in the Essais and Other Writings, Boydell & Brewer Ltd, →ISBN, page 31