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Traditions concerning Jamnes and Mambres in Anglo-Saxon England
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2008
Extract
In the dramatic confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh that preceded the Israelites' departure from Egypt, Pharaoh's magicians played a prominent role: they turned their rods into serpents, if only to have them devoured by Moses's serpent, and then matched the first two plagues brought down on the Egyptians before failing to perform the third (Ex. VII. 11–VIII. 19). Although not named here or elsewhere in the Old Testament, they were identified in II Timothy III.8 as ' ιανν⋯ς and ιαμβρ⋯ς (the Latin forms are usually ‘Iannes’ or ‘Iamnes’ and ‘Mambres’) in a remark that suggests that a considerable tradition had already arisen concerning them: ‘Now just as jannes and Mambres resisted Moses, so these also resist the truth, men corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the faith.’ Two fragmentary Greek papyri (Pap. Vindob. G 29456 verso, in the Nationalbibliothek, Vienna; and Pap. XVI, in the Chester Beatty Library and Gallery of Oriental Art, Dublin), dated to the third and fourth centuries respectively, confirm the existence of at least one early apocryphon about the brothers. The problem of interpreting these fragments, however, is complicated by a bewildering array of references to the two in various languages, which results from both the importance of Exodus to Jews and Christians, and the connection of the brothers to magic. Albert Pietersma and R. Theodore Lutz note that ‘the precise relationship between the loose traditions and the written composition’ is ‘not yet entirely clear’.
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References
1 A recent discussion of the apocryphon (with translations of the Greek and Latin fragments) and its related material is by Pietersma, A. and Lutz, R. T., ‘Jannes and Mambres’, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. Charlesworth, J. H., 2 vols. (Garden City, NY, 1983–1985) II, 427–42.Google Scholar See also Schürer, E., The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.–A.D. 135), ed. and trans. Vermes, G., Miller, F. and Goodman, M., 3 vols. in 4 (Edinburgh, 1973–1987) III, 781–3Google Scholar; and James, M. R., The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament (New York, 1920), 31–8.Google Scholar We should like to thank Brother Caedmon Holmes, Deeana C. Klepper, Michael Lapidge, Michael McHugh, Father Martin McNamara and Michelle P. Brown for their help.
2 Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. Charlesworth, II, 427.Google Scholar
3 Preliminary statements of some of the conclusions in this article appeared in Hall, T. N., ‘Jamnes and Mambres’, in Sources of Anglo-Saxon literary Culture: a Trial Version, ed. Biggs, F. M., Hill, T. D. and Szarmach, P. E. (Binghamton, NY, 1990), pp. 27–9Google Scholar; and in Biggs's ‘Apocrypha’, presented at the 26th International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo (1991).
4 Two previous studies favour the possibility that a fuller version of the apocryphon in Tiberius B. v underlies the Anglo-Saxon evidence: James, M. R., ‘A Fragment of the “Penitence of Jannes and Jambres”’, JTS 2 (1901), 572–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Förster, M., ‘Das lateinisch-altenglische Fragment der Apokryphe von jamnes und Mambres’, ASNSL 108 (1902), 15–28.Google Scholar
5 We follow the edition of Förster, but have not called attention to his expansion of abbreviations or his occasional emendations; see ‘Das lateinisch-altenglische Fragment’, pp. 19–21.Google Scholar The Latin is translated in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. Charlesworth, II, 440–1:Google Scholar ‘Mambres opened the magical books of his brother Jannes; he performed necromancy and brought up from the netherworld his brother's shade. The soul of Jannes said in response, I your brother did not die unjustly, but indeed justly, and the judgment will go against me, since I was more clever than all clever magicians, and opposed the two brothers, Moses and Aaron, who performed great signs and wonders. As a result I died and was brought from among [the living] to the netherworld where there is great burning and the pit of perdition, whence no ascent is possible. Now, then, brother Mambres, make sure you do good in your life to your children and friends; for in the netherworld no good exists, only gloom and darkness. After you will have died and have come to the netherworld, among the dead, your abode will be two cubits wide and four cubits long.’
6 This argument must be treated with caution, since the Greek text is fragmentary; Pietersma and Lutz warn that ‘as a result of more study it may well turn out that the order of some of the Chester Beatty fragments will have to be changed’ (Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. Charlesworth, II, 430, n. 20).Google Scholar
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8 Pietersma and Lutz incorrecdy consider this illumination to be related to the apocryphon: they refer to the text as ‘accompanied by two illustrations’ (Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. Charlesworth, II, 431).Google Scholar This mistake is understandable, since the first illumination depicts two figures who might readily be identified as the brothers.
9 An Eleventh-Century Miscellany, ed. McGurk, et al. , p. 39.Google Scholar
10 Ibid. p. 15. Elsewhere, however, he appears to consider the two works as separate: he lists their contents under separate entries (p. 16), and he does not include ‘Mambres’ in the discussion of the illustrations of ‘Wonders’ (p. 103). In contrast, Knock considers ‘Mambres’ to be part of ‘Wonders’ (p. 89).
11 Ibid. p. 25: ‘a treatise concerning the various monsters that are in the world, perhaps from Pliny if not Priscian, in Latin and Saxon with illustrations’.
12 The Nowell Codex: British Museum Cotton Vitellius A. XV, Second MS, ed. Malone, K., EEMF 12 (Copenhagen, 1963)Google Scholar; see also Gerritsen, J., ‘British Library MS Cotton Vitellius A.xv – a Supplementary Description’, ES 69 (1988), 293–302.Google Scholar
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14 Private communication dated 7 December 1993. She continues, ‘Another feature which may indicate that this was the end of a section is the British Museum stamp, which dates to around the 1830s, prior to reassembly, and which may indicate that this section was distinguished from the others at this point.’ She also notes a rubric to the left of the illustration, which she tentatively reads ‘Þur bosa [or basa]’; see also An Eleventh-Century Miscellany, ed. McGurk, et al. , p. 39. The other illuminations do not contain rubrics.Google Scholar
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18 PG 13, col. 1769: ‘it is not to be found in public writings, but in a secret book, which is entitled Jamnes and Mambres’. This commentary was known in the West in a Latin translation; see Geerard, M., Clavis Patrum Graecorum, 5 vols. (Turnhout, 1983–1987) I, no. 1450.Google Scholar
19 Das Decretum Gelasianum de libris recipients et non recipiendis, ed. von Dobschütz, E. (Leipzig, 1912), p. 12Google Scholar. Dobschütz lists three manuscripts of this work that were known in Anglo-Saxon England: Cambridge, Trinity College B. 16. 44; Hereford, Cathedral Library, O. III. 2; and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 391; see Gneuss, H., ‘A Preliminary List of Manuscripts written or owned in England up to 1100’, ASE 9 (1981), 1–60 (nos. 179, 263 and 576).Google Scholar
20 Commentarius in xiii. epistulas Paulinas, ed. Vogels, H., 3 vols., Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 81 (Vienna, 1966–1969) III, 313:Google Scholar ‘this example is from the apocrypha’. A manuscript of this work may survive in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 765; see Gneuss, ‘Preliminary List’, no. 595.
21 Commentarius, ed. Vogels, III, 313:Google Scholar ‘indeed the brothers Iamnes and Mambres were Egyptian magicians or sorcerers who thought they would oppose with their magic art by false emulation the strength of God, which he performed by Moses. But when in Moses the strength grew in his works, humbled they confessed the sores (wounds) God brought about through Moses. Thus it is said that they will not profit in the ungodliness of their assertions because their ignorance and seduction will be well known, and although unwilling, nevertheless they will confess their ignorance in the end.’ Atto of Vercelli repeats this remark (PL 134, col. 695).
22 Martin McNamara does not include a separate entry on the work in his Apocrypha in the Irish Church (Dublin, 1975).Google Scholar
23 The text and translation are from the Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, ed. Stokes, W. and Strachan, J., 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1901) I, 695Google Scholar: ‘i.e. two Egyptian wizards who had been contending with Moses; and the Law records them not, but his own tradition, for he was skilled in the whole Old Testament’. The gloss has been assigned to the eighth century; see Kenney, J. F., The Sources for the Early History of Ireland: Ecclesiastical (New York, 1929), pp. 635–6.Google Scholar
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25 PL 103, col. 241: ‘these are the magicians who performed signs in Egypt against the signs of Moses. And these names are not to be found in the books of the law, but Paul brought them forth either through the spirit or through other lost scriptures.’ see Lapidge, M. and Sharpe, R., A Bibliography of Celtic-Latin Literature, 400–1200 (Dublin, 1985), p. 177 (no. 680).Google Scholar
26 PL 112, col. 648: ‘for what some ask – from where blessed Paul was able to know the names of those who resisted Moses – is worthy of ridicule. For indeed is it ridiculous: Moses certainly – he is seen to have made known those deeds so great that happened before him, which were obscure to many and also to remember such great men, whom no one at that time could have known; but to wonder at Paul if he was able to say the names of two men who lived before.’
27 PL 117, cols. 806–7: ‘the hatred of heretics is always restless. The magicians of Pharaoh, whom the Apostle describes, had that tendency. Jannes and Mambres, two brothers, were magicians, whose names the Apostle did not find in sacred books, but in apocryphal, that is secret ones, which are not to be read by all because among the truth is contained much untruth. These two magicians opposed Moses when they turned their rods into snakes as Moses had his, and water into blood. But when it came to the third sign, that is to the lice, they failed, saying: “This is the finger of God.”’ Haymo relies here in part on a passage from Augustine, Ep. lv; ed. Goldbacher, A., Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 34 (Vienna, 1895), 203–4.Google Scholar
28 In both the interlinear and marginal gloss, the Glossa ordinaria follows the Ambrosiaster, identifying the names as taken from the apocrypha. Early in the fourteenth century, Nicholas of Lyre reveals that he has neither direct nor indirect knowledge of it: ‘Nomina uero istorum magorum non habuit Apostolus ex sacra scriptura, sed ex aliis libris Hebraeorum, ut dicit hie Glo[ssa]. Sed quia losephus et Rab[bi] Sa[lomon] de hac materia loquentes nihil dicunt de istis nominibus, ideo uidetur melius dicendum, quod habuit per reuelationem, sicut et Moyses mundi creationem’ (‘the Aposde did not take these names from Holy Scripture, but from the Hebrew books, as the Glossa says here. But because Josephus and Rabbi Salomon [Rashi] speaking of this material say nothing about these two, it seems better to say that he received them through revelation, as Moses received the creation of the world’); see the Biblia Sacra cum glossis interlineari, et ordinaria, Nicolai Lyrani postilla, ac moralitatibus …, 6 vols. (Venice, 1588) VI, 127r.Google Scholar
29 the facsimile is The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch: British Museum Cotton Claudius B. IV, ed. Dodwell, C. R. and Clemoes, P., EEMF 18 (Copenhagen, 1974).Google Scholar
30 The Old English Version of the Heptateuch, ed. Crawford, S. J., EETS os 160 (London, 1922), 232: ‘then the magicians said to Pharaoh: “This is the power of God”’.Google Scholar
31 see Ohlgren, T. H., Insular and Anglo-Saxon Illuminated Manuscripts. An Iconographic Catalogue c. 625–1100 (New York, 1986), nos. 191, 252 and 258. Ohlgren has derived his descriptions from those in the facsimile, in which the two are simply referred to as ‘magicians’.Google Scholar
32 See the passage from Isidore cited below. Two pseudo-Bede commentaries on Exodus use the verse from Timothy in the context of this passage from Exodus (PL 91, col. 302 and 93, col. 368), as does the Glossa ordinaria I, 104v.
33 Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, ed. Dodwell, and Clemoes, , p. 61.Google Scholar
34 ‘And the magicians Jamnes and Mambres dug wells and said that the water was brought from the land of Gessen which the Lord did not afflict with plagues because of the Children of Israel who lived there.’
35 Old English Version of the Hexateuch, ed. Crawford, , p. 229: ‘then Pharaoh gathered all the men most skilful in magic, and they performed another such thing through their magic and through their incantations. And they threw down all their rods, and they became serpents, but Aaron's rod devoured all their rods.’Google Scholar
36 ‘And they every one cast down their rods, and they were turned nto serpents; but Aaron's rod devoured their rods.’
37 Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, ed. Dodwell, and Clemoes, , p. 61.Google Scholar
38 Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. Charlesworth, II, 438.Google Scholar
39 Eusebius Werke. VIII Band. Die Praeparatio Evangelica, ed. Mras, K., 2 vols., Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte 43 (Berlin, 1956) I, 494Google Scholar. The translation is by Gifford, E. H., Eussbius: Preparation for the Gospel (Oxford, 1903), p. 443Google Scholar: ‘And next in order came Jannes and Jambres, Egyptian sacred scribes, men judged to have no superiors in the practice of magic, at the time when the Jews were being driven out of Egypt. So then these were the men chosen by the people of Egypt as fit to stand beside Musaeus, who led forth the Jews, a man who was most powerful in prayer to God; and of the plagues which Musaeus brought upon Egypt, these men showed themselves able to disperse the most violent.’
40 Charlesworth, , Old Testament Pseudepigrapha II, 428.Google Scholar
41 In addition to the works discussed below, several others mention the deaths of Jamnes and Mambres; all appear too vague to indicate a common tradition. The Gospel of Nicodemus V.1 mentions that the magicians were not able to perform all the plagues, and concludes, ‘et quoniam signa quae fecerunt non erant ex Deo, perierunt ipsi et qui crediderunt eis’; see the edition by Kim, H. C. (Toronto, 1973), p. 21Google Scholar: ‘and whereas the signs which they did were not of God, they perished and those also that believed on them’; trans. James, M. R., The Apocryphal New Testament (1924; corrected ed., Oxford, 1953), p. 101Google Scholar. This passage does not appear in the Old English translations; see the entry by Morey, J. in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture, ed. Biggs, , Hill, and Szarmach, , pp. 45–8Google Scholar. In the section on Simon and Jude in the pseudo-Abdias Apostolical historiae, the two apostles pray to God: ‘Deus Israel, qui exinanisti magica figmenta Jamnes et Mambres, et dedisti eos in confusionem et ulcera, et perire eos jussisti; sic faciat et hic manus tua super hos magos Zaroen et Arfaxat’; Codex Apocryphus Novi Testament, ed. Fabricius, J. A., 2 vols. (Hamburg, 1719) I, 622Google Scholar: ‘God of Israel, who emptied the magical figments of Jamnes and Mambres, and sent them into confusion and torment, and commanded them to die; may your hand here do likewise on the magicians Zaroen and Arfaxat.’ Another passage that might perhaps imply that Jamnes and Mambres died with Pharaoh at the Red Sea appears in Quodvultdeus's De promissionibus et praedictionibus Dei: ‘Contra Pharaonem duo testes Dei missi sunt, Moyses et Aaron: et duo magi Pharaonis, Jamnes et Mambres resistentes Moysi, qui simul cum suo rege perierunt’ (PL 51, col. 848: ‘against Pharaoh two witnesses of God were sent, Moses and Aaron, and the two magicians of Pharaoh resisted Moses, who with his kingdom perished’). A search of the names in CETEDOC, the database of Christian Latin authors made available by Brepols in conjunction with the Corpus Christianorum (CCSL), produced no other relevant examples; we would like to thank Bob Scott, Electronic Text Librarian at the Columbia University Libraries, for his help. Here too may be mentioned the ‘Testament of Solomon’ (XXV.1–7), in which a demon from the Red Sea takes credit for aiding the magicians, and describes how he was trapped by the Sea; see Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. Charlesworth, I, 985–6.Google Scholar
42 see the entry in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture, ed. Biggs, , Hill, and Szarmach, , pp. 59–60.Google Scholar
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44 Ælfric's Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, W. W., 4 vols., EETS os 76, 82, 94 and 114 (London, 1881–1900; repr. as 2 vols., 1966) I, 372: ‘the magicians Jamnes and Mambres said many things through the devil's craft, as Moyses wrote, and they led astray Pharaoh with their tricks until he drowned in the deep sea’.Google Scholar
45 Acta Apostolorum apocrypha, ed. Lipsius, R. A. and Bonnet, M., 2 vols. in 3 (Leipzig, 1891–1903) I, 149Google Scholar. Our translation is adapted from that of Walker, A., Apocryphal Gospels, Acts and Revelations, Ante-Nicene Christian Library 16 (Edinburgh, 1873), 268Google Scholar: ‘Do you suppose that I ought to speak against a false man, a desperate, wicked magician, who has given his soul up to death, whose destruction and perdition will come speedily? Who pretends to be what he is not, and ruins men by magic art? If you consent to hear his words, and to shield him, you will destroy your soul and your kingdom. Indeed, he is a most base man, and like the Egyptians Jamnes and Mambres who led Pharaoh and his army astray until they drowned in the sea: so also he, through the instruction of his father the devil, persuades men, and does much evil through magic and other means, if any are among men, and thus deceives many innocent people of your kingdom.’
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52 There are other places where the translation omits material. Most notably, the Old English includes only a single sentence from the Latin §§ 40–50.
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65 On the use of etymologies in Old English, see in particular Robinson, F. C., ‘The Significance of Names in Old English Literature’, Anglia 86 (1968), 14–58, esp. 19–20.Google Scholar
66 The grammatical constructions are not identical since ‘sæs’ is a genitive; see Biggs, F. M., ‘The End of the Sea: the Old English Exodus, lines 466a–7b’, N&Q ns 32 (1985), 290–1.Google Scholar
67 Clayton, M. and Magennis, H., The Old English lives of St Margaret, CSASE 9 (Cambridge, 1994), 166Google Scholar: ‘the Lord drove Satan, our king, from the mirth of Paradise, and gave him two lands: one is Jamne, the other Mambre, and he brings there all whom he may seize of mankind’.
68 At 28r–v: ‘Satan is our king, who was cast out of Paradise. Look and see. In the books Iamne and Mambre you will find our lineage.’ Clayton and Magennis edit and translate this version; the passage occurs in Old English Lives, pp. 208–9Google Scholar, but they omit ‘inuenies’; see further, F. M. Biggs's review forthcoming in JEGP. see also Assmann, B., Angelsächsische Homilien und Heiligenleben, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 3 (Kassel, 1889), 216Google Scholar, which differs in the placement of the phrase ‘scruta et uide’; and Gerould, G. H., ‘A New Text of the Passio S. Margaritae with some Account of its Latin and English Relations’, PMLA 39 (1924), 525–56, at 533.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
69 PL 74, col. 271: ‘the magicians … under Pharoah’. see Geerard, Clavis Patrum Graecorum III, no. 6036; and the entry by Jackson, P. in Sources of Anglo-Saxon literary Culture, ed. Biggs, , Hill, and Szarmach, , pp. 162–5. We refer to the earlier version, PL 74, cols. 243–342; the relevant passage in the other occurs in PL 74, cols. 360–1.Google Scholar
70 The Lausiac History of Palladius, ed. Butler, C., 2 vols., Texts and Studies 6 (Cambridge, 1898–1904) II, 50Google Scholar; trans. Meyer, R. T., Palladius: the Lausiac History, Ancient Christian Writers 34 (London, 1965), 60: ‘why did you come to our place?’Google Scholar
71 PL 74, col. 271: ‘the makers left this their place to us to cultivate’.
72 see Price, J., ‘The Virgin and the Dragon: the Demonology of Seinte Margarete’, in Sources and Relations: Studies in Honour of J. E. Cross, ed. Collins, M., Price, J. and Hamer, A., Leeds Stud. in Eng. 16 (1985), 337–57, at 356, n. 28.Google Scholar Mambre is also mentioned in Gen. XIII.18, XIV.13, XIV.24, XXIII. 17, XXIII. 19, XXV.9, XXXV.27, XLIX.30 and L.13.
73 see Leclercq, H., ‘Mambre’, in the Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, ed. Cabrol, F. and Leclercq, H., 15 vols. in 30 (Paris, 1907–1953) X.1, cols. 1347–8; and the description in the ‘Itinerarium Antonini Placentini’ ed. P. Geyer, CCSL 175 (Turnhout, 1965), 144.Google Scholar
74 For another example, see Biggs, F. M., ‘Ælfric as Historian: his Use of Alcuin's Laudationes and Sulpicius’ Dialogues in his two Lives of Martin’, in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints’ Lives and Their Contexts, ed. Szarmach, P. E. (forthcoming).Google Scholar
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