MAMBRE (Hebrew Mamre). - Name of an oak tree located near Hebron (v.). There Abraham settled, raising an altar there (Gen. 13:18), where he learned of the captivity of his nephew Lot (Gen. 14:13), whom he immediately sought to free, and where he received the promise of a son, Isaac (ibid. 18:18), through the appearance of the three angels. The phrase that M. is "opposite" Hebron (ibid. 25:9; 49:30) and the designation "M. civitatem Arbe" (ibid. 35:27) led some to believe that M. was located at Hebron; however, tradition has always placed it further north.
According to Flavius Josephus, the venerable oak was 6 stadia (perhaps 16 should be read) from Hebron (Antiq. Iud., I, 10, 4) and in the 4th century it was still visible. In the meantime, the oak and the nearby well were protected by a large enclosing wall, perhaps begun by Herod the Great and completed under Hadrian, measuring 65.10 x 94.35 m, where pagans, Jews and Christians came to perform their devotions. M. was in fact a much-frequented place, and in 135 Jewish prisoners were sold there as slaves. At the request of his mother-in-law Eutropia, Constantine had a mediocre church built within the enclosure, which German excavations have partially brought back to light. The great enclosure still stands a few meters high, and at the entrance pottery from the 9th-13th century B.C. was found. The place is called Râmet el-Halil.
Bibliography4 works
Bellarmino Bagatti
ARCHAEOLOGY
The vision of Abraham at M. was expressed in Christian art as early as the 5th century.
In Rome, in St. Mary Major, the vision is expressed in two scenes. Above, Abraham hastens toward three figures in sacred, nimbed attire; below, these are seated at table, and the calf is offered to them; they foretell that Sarah will have a son (Isaac); Abraham turns with an air of reproach toward his incredulous wife (Wilpert, Mosaiken, pl. 10); this second episode is also represented at Ravenna in St. Vitale.
But the vision was also painted at Milan in St. Ambrose (V. Forcella and E. Seletti, Iscrizioni cristiane di Milano anteriori al sec. IX, Codogno 1896, no. 210) and in Spain in a basilica of Saragossa (Prudentius, Dittochaeon, no. 4).
Already in the Vita Constantini (III, 51-63) and in the Itinerary of Bordeaux there is mention of a Christian basilica erected on the site of Abraham's well. It is then indicated in the mosaic of Madaba, in the itinerary of Arculf-Adamnan of 670, by the Byzantine historian Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopulus, of the first half of the 14th century (Hist. eccles. VIII, 30: PG 164, 116) and lastly by the Franciscan Quaresmius (1616-25) in his *Historica theologica et moralis Terrae Sanctae dilucidatio** (2nd ed., II, Venice 1882, p. 577). The explorations promoted by the Górres-Gesellschaft have brought to light the remains of an ancient Christian basilica with three naves, an apse, prothesis and diaconicon.