Plate of St. John the Baptist kept at the Museo del Tesoro di San Lorenzo in Genoa, together with the Sacro Catino whose emerald color recalls the Grail.
John the Baptist the last prophet of the Old Testament and the first of the New Testament. At the time of Mary’s visitation he came into contact with the heavenly soul of Adam whom he recognized when Jesus of Nazareth presented himself to him 30 years later. John, like Jesus, was close to the Essenes, from whom he took the practice of baptism by immersion in the waters with which he allowed the baptized to temporarily loosen the link between the physical and the etheric making them feel the approach of Christ. Through his initiation into the forces of the Aquarian Region, he allowed the descent of Christ into Jesus of Nazareth at the moment of Baptism in the Jordan.
Herod Antipa, was the representative of the anti-Graal forces. Salome, daughter of Herodias, was initiated into the fallen Mysteries of Venere-Astarte, or Astaroth. Her Seven Veils dance represents the decadence of the Mysteries of feminine sexuality deprived of sacredness. The result of this counter-Mystery was the take-off of John. From that moment the image of the decapitated head of the Baptist placed on the silver plate represents the counter-image of the Holy Grail, the Cup of Abominations of the Whore of Babylon.
However, from that moment the soul of the Baptist can become the group soul of Jesus and his 12 disciples: he protected the spreading of the message of Christ. As the disciples no longer demanded to follow him, only the other John remained, the Evangelist or Lazarus. It was at the moment when he was under the Cross that the Mystery of the two Johns was fulfilled: the Baptist became one with the Evangelist. The two doors, of Cancer, the Baptist, and Capricorn, the Evangelist, opened on the midway of Christ.
John the Evangelist was the one who, in Old Testament times, became incarnated as Hiram Abiff, the Master Architect of the Temple of Solomon. The union between the Baptist and the Evangelist made it possible to create a continuity between the baptism of the water of the Old Testament and the fire of the New Testament. This is the middle way between the two pillars of Solomon’s temple, Jakin and Boaz, Strength and Form, Fire and Water, Male and Female, so that on the altar of the Masonic temple we have the Gospel open on the Prologue of the Gospel of John, but at the same time we celebrate the Feast of Light near the Summer Solstice, June 24, for St. John the Baptist. This is how the Baptist became the patron saint of Freemasonry, in its most esoteric meaning.