JANNES and JAMBRES. - Names of two Egyptian magicians who, according to Jewish traditions, opposed Moses at the court of the Pharaoh. St. Paul recalls them in 2 Tim. 3, 8. In the Greek text, however, the second name is 'Ιαμβοῦς.
The Aramaic variants are collected by H. Odeberg in G. Kittel, *Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament*, III, Stuttgart 1939, p. 193.
Since these names do not occur either in the Old Testament or in the works of Flavius Josephus or Philo, the question arises as to where Paul obtained them. Some, following Theodore (In 2 Tim., 3, 8: *PG* 82, 847), suggest an oral tradition, while others, with Ambrosiaster (*PL* 17, 494) and Origen (*In Matth. lat.*: *PG* 13, 1769), propose an apocryphal *Book of Jannes and Jambres*. In *Contra Celsum* (IV, 51: *PG* 11, 1112), Origen reports that the Neopythagorean Celsus (2nd cent. A.D.) knew a “history of Moses” featuring Jannes and Jambres. Pliny the Elder (d. A.D. 79) also mentions “the magic contest with Moses, in which Jannes and Jambres and Lotapes and the Jews were defeated” (*Natural History*, 30, 2, 11). According to C. Spicq, the work alluded to by Pliny would date before A.D. 65 and thus could have been known to Paul. However, this does not imply that the Apostle cited such apocryphal works as sacred Scripture, as in the case of the *Book of Jannes* (cf. M.-J. Lagrange, in *Rev. bibl.*, 21 [1921], p. 222), the *Gospel of Nicodemus* (ch. 5). These names are also mentioned by Apuleius (*Apology*, 80), the *Acts of Paul and Peter*, the *Apostolic Constitutions* (8, 1), and the Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan on Ex. 1, 15; 7, 11; Num. 22, 22 (where they are said to be the sons of Balaam).