The scepter shall not leave Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs. To him shall be the obedience of the peoples. (Genesis 49:10)
The “Judas Gem,” Green jasper amulet, first or second century CE, at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, inventory no. 2169.
April D. DeConick, in her book: “The Thirteenth Apostle,” comments about the “Judas Gem”:
The Gospel of Judas and the Judas gem confirm each other. The gem is material evidence that there were Gnostics in the second century who identified Judas as the demon who was Lord of the Cosmos, just as I have argued is the case in the Gospel of Judas. So this interpretation of the Gospel of Judas is not only narratologically correct, but historically confirmed with physical evidence from ancient magic. The identification of Judas with the astral lord Ialdabaoth was a Gnostic secret that had tremendous power to control the demon god who ruled the world!
The Judas Prophecy
How does Judas Iscariot get connected to this complicated web, becoming identified with laldabaoth in the Gospel of Judas and functioning as the astral lord’s secret name on this Gnostic gem? What likely sealed his fate as Ialdabaoth’s double was the fact that the scriptures associate Judas’ namesake, Judah, with leonine features. According to Genesis 49:9, Judah is a lion welp. The text describes the young lion Judah, saying, “He stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as a lioness. Who dares rouse him?”
Just in case there might be an objection raised that this scriptural passage actually refers to one of Jacob’s sons, who was not Judas Iscariot, the Gnostic exegete would likely point to the following verse. For the Gnostic Christian, verse 10 would have made perfectly transparent that there was hidden within the scripture the truth about another Judah-to-come, a Judah who was the Iscariot.
“The scepter shall not leave Judah. nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet. until he comes to whom it belongs. To him shall be the obedience of the peoples.” (Genesis 49:10)
This passage must have been understood by the Sethian Christians as a prophecy that Judas Iscariot fulfilled. He was the Judah-to-come, the lion of the scripture who had been prophesized in Deuteronomy to become Ialdabaoth, the leonine demon ruling the world. With this reading of the passage, Judas Iscariot’s connection to the chief archon was cast. His black destiny was sealed, secreted away in the Gospel of Judas and hidden on the back of a Gnostic gem for two thousand years.
✤ Colorbasus
