Yesterday, June 20th, was the first day of summer. Officially it was at 11:24pm, Central Standard Time, where I live. If you live much east of here, it was this morning, on June 21st.
Traditionally, in the Christian world, it marks the birthday of John the baptist, although it is usually celebrated a few days later, depending on when the solstice actually occurs. It’s six months later than the birth of his cousin Jesus, whose birthday is celebrated a few days after the winter solstice.
When Jesus went to John to be baptized, John said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30), which is to say that, after Jesus is born, days get longer, after John is born, days get shorter. Jesus, after all, has all the attributes of many pagan sun gods.
Christianity is notorious for having adapted much of pagan mythology, holidays, customs, well, really, nearly all of paganism into Christianity. Twelve Greek gods, twelve apostles, all the same holidays, Churches built on top of the foundations of pagan temples, the which were torn down by Christian monks: the list is near endless. So, from whence was John the baptist derived?
The answer is in the etymology of his name. John comes from the Latin Johannes, which comes from the Greek Ioannes, which in Hebrew is Yohanon, all of which comes from Oannes. Oannes was the Mesopotamian god of water and wisdom, whose worship included baptism. Oannes was depicted as half man and half fish and was also known as Dagon. The odd hat called a miter, worn by Christian cardinals, is a stylized fish head, and was worn by the priests of Dagon.
So, Jesus, the sun god, is baptized by Oannes, the water god. The great mythologist, Joseph Campbell wrote,” Several scholars have suggested, therefore, that there was never either John or Jesus, but only a water-god and a sun-god.”
So let’s honor both today, both sun and water. Get out your sprinklers, your super soakers, your slip n’ slides! Fill up some water balloons and baptize your neighbors!
First shared on the Squatcher’s Lounge Podcast:
For the reading impaired, an audio version of this quasi theory may be found here: