- The name "John" means "the Ionian", by extension, "the Greek"
- Σίμων ὁ υἱὸς Ἰωάνου (John 1:42) == Σίμων Βαριωνᾶ (Matthew 16:17) ---> Ιωανης == Ιωνα
- Ionia = Ἰωνίς, Ιωνάς, Ίων, Ιωνία
- "Baptist" is also the role of the herald about which Hermes talks in Corpus Hermeticum IV, this herald was sent by God to mankind with a bowl of νοῦς (divine mind) in which men could be baptized if they chose to heed the call and accept the offer of gnosis or higher, divine knowledge and consciousness.
The myth of Hermes appointed by the Father to proclaim to the pagans a symbolic baptism of intellect was, on the one hand, judaized in the myth of John the Baptist sent by God (John 1:6) to proclaim to the Jews a baptism of μετάνοια (Mark 1:4 ss.), not of "repentance for the remission of sins" as we want to understand later, but of change of religion, of "conversion" to the true God, to the Father that they do not know and do not want to know (John 7:28; 8:19; Acts 20:21), and, on the other hand, enacted, "sacramentalized" in the rite of baptism with water by which Jesus himself received the anointment of the spirit consecrating him "Messiah" or "Christ" (Luke 4,18; Isaiah 61:6).
And just as those who have not listened to the proclamation of Hermes are remained only endowed with reason, having acquired neither intellect nor gnosis or knowledge of the Father, so "unless one is born of water and the Spirit, no one can enter in the kingdom of God" (John 3:5) - and this is why it was impossible that the Jews who had refused the baptism of John, could believe.
And just as those who have not listened to the proclamation of Hermes are remained only endowed with reason, having acquired neither intellect nor gnosis or knowledge of the Father, so "unless one is born of water and the Spirit, no one can enter in the kingdom of God" (John 3:5) - and this is why it was impossible that the Jews who had refused the baptism of John, could believe.
(my bold)
https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/ltp/19 ... 0401ar.pdf