IANNES e MAMBRES. - The names of two Egyptian magicians who, according to Jewish traditions, are said to have opposed Mosè at Pharaoh’s court. S. Paolo mentions them in II Tim. 3, 8. In Greek, however, the second name is Ἰαμβρῆς.
The Aramaic variants are collected by H. Odeberg in C. Kittel, Theol. Wörterbuch zum Neuen Test., III, Stuttgart 1939, p. 193.
Since these names occur neither in the Old Testament nor in Flavio Giuseppe or Filone, the question arises as to where Paolo drew them from. Some, with Teodoreto (In II Tim., 3, 8: PG 82, 847), think of an oral tradition; others, with the Ambrosiastro (PL 17, 494) and Origene (In Matth. lat.: PG 13, 1769), think of an apocryphal I. et M. liber. In Contra Celsum (IV, 51: PG 11, 1112), Origene reports that the Neopythagorean Numenio (2nd cent. A.D.) knew a “history of Mosè and I. and Iambres.” Plinio il Vecchio as well (d. 79 A.D.) knew of an “alia magices factio a Mose, et Ianne et Lotape ac Iudeis pendens” (Hist. nat., 30, 2, 11). According to C. Spicq, the work to which Plinio alludes would be earlier than 65 and could therefore have been cited by Paolo. It does not follow, however, that the Apostle cites as sacred this or other apocrypha containing such names, such as the Documento sadoqita (cf. M.-J. Lagrange, in Rev. bibl., 21 [1912], p. 222), or the Vangelo di Nicodemo (chap. 5). These names are also mentioned by Apuleio (Apol., 80), by the Atti di Paolo e Pietro, by the Constitut. Apostol. (8, 1), and by the Targum dello Pseudo-Ionathan In Ex. 1, 15; 7, 11; Num. 22, 22 (which calls them sons of Balaam).
Pietro De Ambroggi