MAMBRE (Hebr. Mamre). — Name Hebron (v.). Abraham settled there and erected an altar (Gen. 13:18); there he learned of the captivity of his nephew Lot (Gen. 14:13), whom he immediately sought to free, and there he received the promise of his son Isaac (ibid. 18:18) through the apparition of the three angels. The statement 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 situated at Hebron; tradition, however, has always placed it farther north.
According to Flavius Josephus, the venerable oak stood 6 stadia (perhaps 16 should be read) from Hebron (Antiq. Iud., I, 10, 4), and was still visible in the fourth century. In the meantime, the oak and the nearby well were protected by a substantial surrounding wall, perhaps begun by Herod the Great and completed under Hadrian, measuring 65.10 by 94.35 m., where pagans, Jews, and Christians came to perform their devotions. M. was in fact a much-frequented place, and in 135 the Jewish captives were sold there as slaves. At the request of his mother-in-law Eutropia, Constantine had a modest church built within the enclosure; German excavations have partially brought it to light. The great enclosure still rises several metres high, and pottery from the ninth–thirteenth centuries B.C. was found at its entrance. The place is called Râmet el-Halil.
In Rome, at S. Maria Maggiore, the vision is expressed in two scenes. Above, Abraham hastens toward three figures in sacred garments and with haloes; below, they are seated at table, and the calf is offered to them; they predict that Sara will have a son (Isacco); Abraham turns toward his incredulous wife with a reproachful expression (Wilpert, Mosaiken, pl. 10); this second episode is also represented at Ravenna, in S. Vitale.
But the vision was also painted in Milan, at S. Ambrogio (v. E. Seletti, Iscrizioni cristiane di Milano anteriori al sec. IX, Codogno 1896, no. 210), and in Spain, in a basilica at Saragozza (Prudenzio, Dittochaeon, no. 4).
As early as the Vita Constantini (III, 51-63) and the Itinerary of Bordeaux, a Christian basilica erected at the site of Abraham’s well is mentioned. It is subsequently indicated in the mosaic of Madaba, in the itinerary of Arcolfo Adamnano of 670, by the Byzantine historian Nicoforo Callisto Xanthopulo, from the first half of the fourteenth century (Hist. eccles. VIII, 30: PG 164, 116), and finally by the Franciscan Quaresmio (1616-25) in his Historica theologica et moralis Terrae Sanctae di-
lucidatio (2nd ed., II, Venice 1882, p. 577). The excavations sponsored by the Górres-Gesellschaft have brought to light the remains of an ancient Christian basilica with three naves, an apse, prothesis, and diaconicon.