On February 24 and 25 in the Orthodox tradition there are two feast days about discovering the head of John the Baptist (commemorating two different dates, and there is a third feast day for another finding later in the year; the head kept getting lost!). The head of John the Baptist is quite the fascinating relic and there are four places that claim to house the head, one place is Roman Catholic, another Eastern Orthodox, then a museum in Germany and an Islamic mosque! The head of John the Baptist has many legends associated it, particularly the Knights Templar. I may have to go down this rabbit hole at some point as they all are very fascinating! Today’s post is in regards to an apocrypha text titled “The Life of John the Baptist by Serapion“. The dating of the text is not known, it could be as early as the latter half of fourth century. The tradition is not known, perhaps Syriac or Coptic. I am not going to cover the entire text in this post, but rather just a section towards the end. This section relates to what happened after John was beheaded, and what the head actually did! It is quite the crazy tale. Just another piece of lore to add to the mysticism of John the Baptist’s head. I am using the English translation by Slavomir Ceplo in the New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures Volume 1. Since it is a newer translation, I will not provide the section in full but rather paraphrasing it. I highly recommend that volume (as well as 2 and 3) as those series of books contain very rarely read literature that are extremely fascinating.
The above piece of artwork is from 1876 titled L’Apparition and was painted by Gustave Moreau. I think it will fit quite well with this story!
After John was beheaded, it was handed to Herodias. The eyes of the head were still open and apparently the ears could still hear. Herodias starts cursing the head that lays in front of her, telling it she will pluck out it’s eyes, rip out it’s tongue and pull out all it’s hair. As she reaches towards the head to accomplish this, the head of the John spreads out all it’s hair and flies to the center of the room!! As it was floating in front of the king and his officials, the roof of the building opened up and the head flew out. The story then speaks of the three associated with John’s death and how they were disposed. As the head was flying off, Herodias’ eyes were pulled out from her head and the room (which had opened up for the head to fly away) fell upon the body of Herodias, at which time the floor of the building opened up. This swallowed Herodias to the depths of hell. Seeing all this, her daughter went mad. It states she went to a frozen lake to dance upon it, at which time the Lord broke the ice and caused her to fall in. Attempts to rescue her were futile, so they cut off her head with a sword, the same which had decapitated John. After this, a whale (?!) appeared and and spit out her body back onto the shore?!!? Just take a minute to process that. During all this commotion, Herod had suffered a stroke in front of the audience. All this took place immediately after the death of John. If you recall my post on the apocrypha tale “The Martyrdom of Zechariah“, those three meet a different ending, though not quite as graphic as this tale.
One of Herod’s men went down to the prison and quickly handed over the body of John to John’s followers, hoping nothing else would happen.
What happened with John’s head? It went and flew over Jerusalem for three years saying, over and over, “Herod, you may not marry the wife of your brother while he is still alive“. After three years, the head flew elsewhere throughout the world stating this same phrase, over and over. After making a fifteen year world tour, the head flew to the city of Homs (in Syria), where followers took the head and buried it, afterwards building a church over it.
There you have it, the flying head of John the Baptist! For those curious about the feast days in February 24 and 25, check out this page: https://vema.com.au/first-second-finding-of-the-venerable-head-of-john-the-baptist-24-february/. May 25th is the third feast day in regards to the third time finding John’s head.
Featured artwork: The flying head of John the Baptist, made with Midjourney AI.
bP
Culmination of Wisdom 