268 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
high- priest Rui. If this be so, the Talmudic tale’ of his having been 
drowned i in the Red Sea is certainly erroneous, as Rui survived his 
master Menepthah, and of him and Ani the tombs were known long 
after, as Palladius, in the Lausiac History, speaks, in the section pert 
Makariou tou Alewandreos, of Kyzotaduov Tov ‘lavvod Kat lapBpov tov 
Payor. 
There is a statue somewhat similar, though larger, in the British 
Museum. 
! The Rabbinical authorities differed as to the ultimate fate of these magicians, 
but they agree for the most part in regarding them as the sons of Balaam, and 
identify them with the magicians who warned Pharaoh of the birth of Moses. 
Abulpharagius (Hist. Dynastiarum, p. 17) says that the young Moses was given 
over to them to teach, that they taught him magic; hence Apuleius (Apolo- 
gia, Paris, 1635, p. 100, 1. 18) speaks of ts Moses et Iannes as magicians. We learn 
from the Jalkut Rubeni (p. 81, col. 2) that beg foiled by Moses by the plague of 
the lice they became proselytes, but not sincere ones, for according to Tanyuma 
(p. 36, col.2) they became the leaders of the defection of the golden calf. One 
ancient Midrash on Ex. xv. 10, says that Iohanne and Mamre were drowned in 
the Red Sea. So says the Arabic Catena; while Jonathan ben Uzziel, in the 
Targum on Num. xxii. 22, says they perished in the slaughter of the Midianites. 
In the Zohar before quoted (108, c. 2) in the comment on Exod. xxxii. 28, they 
are said to have perished in the slaughter by the Leyites: indeed the passage is 
explained to mean that the Levites slew these two, who in eyil influence were as 
bad as 3000. 
For further conjectures, see Schéttgen, Hore Hebraice et Talmudice in Nov. 
Test. Leipzig, 1733 ; Grotius, Dissertatio de Ianne et LIambre, Hafnie, 1707 ; 
Zentgrav, de Ianne et Iambre, Argent. 1669; Michaelis de Lanne, &c., Halae, 
1747; Wetstein, Nov. Test. Amst. 1751; Bochart, Hierozoicon, Leyden, 1692, 1. 
lib. ii. p. 6445, cap.53; and Dilherr, Disputationum, Noriberg. 1652, vol.i. p. 272. 
The book of Iannes and Jambres was supposed to be extant in the days of Origen 
(Comm. in Matth. xxvii. 9, ined. Paris, 1711, p. 1012), at least in referring to 
the prophecy regarding the potter’s field he says, in commenting on quotations from 
uncanonical books, that this passage on the Egyptian magicians is taken from a cer- 
tain ‘‘ libro secreto qui superscribitur Iannei et Mambrei Liber.’’? Among the earlier 
commentators there was a considerable difference of opinion as to Paul’s source of 
information: some, like Theodoret (in loco), teaching that he had learned it from 
Jewish tradition; others, like Ambrose (Opera, 1549, p. 2070 p), regarding it as a 
quotation from an apocryphal work, to which he refers, and from which he has 
probably gathered the fact that they were brothers, a statement also made by Pal- 
ladius (loco citato supra); while others believed that it was learned by direct imspi- 
ration. The name Ani occurs in several monumental inscriptions: there is in 
Turin an inscription of a scribe of this name (Stele, No. 69), with no genealogy. 
