Book burning of Ephesus

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Paul's preaching at Ephesus, painting by Eustache Le Sueur , 1612 ( Louvre ).

The burning of the books at Ephesus is an incident told in the New Testament ( Acts 19.18–20  EU ).

Biblical text

The author of the Acts of the Apostles liked to use the local color of ancient cities, so that his actors there are confronted with topics that were typical for the place: Similar to the way the stay in Athens gives the Lucanian Paul the opportunity to deal with philosophy (Areopagus speech) in Ephesus the apostle's discussion of magical practices takes place. Ephesus was considered the center of magical knowledge in ancient times. First we learn that Paul himself healed illnesses as a powerful miracle worker in Ephesus, but "God worked through the hand of Paul" ( Acts 19:11  ZB ) - in contrast to the arbitrariness with which the Jewish exorcists described below proceed. When they use the Jesus name in an incantation, they are attacked by the possessed person , who has extraordinary powers thanks to the demon , and have to flee badly battered. The residents of the city find out about it and react with religious awe ( Acts 19 : 13–17  ZB ). The name of Jesus is extolled.

Many of the new converts are now giving up the magical practices that they had practiced as Christians. Jürgen Roloff thinks that these Ephesians joined Christianity because they had promised themselves access to mysterious forces: "In this way the dangerous syncretistic underground of the community is dried up, as it were." As an outward sign of this change of heart, they bring the magic books, theirs Recipes they had previously used and burn them publicly. The value of the burned books is enormous (50,000 silver denarii ), which underlines the scope of the book burning campaign.

In the Greek text of Acts 19:19  ZB , the covering term περίεργος períergos is used. When applied to people, the adjective denotes people who care about things that are none of their business ("cheeky, curious"). In relation to things, it means "belonging to sorcery."

Impact history

Old Church and Middle Ages

In the old church the book burning of Ephesus was received as a model story. It was repeated in the biographies of saints: individual astrologers or magicians converted to Christianity, and as an outward sign of their change of heart and act of penance they burned their magic books with their own hands. At the same time, the unimaginably high number in fifties is understood allegorically according to the old church tradition: 50 is the number of forgiveness of sins and a new beginning.

The book burners of Ephesus were understood - correctly - as magicians in the medieval tradition of interpretation; In addition, the interpretation as philosophi was included in the Glossa ordinaria and developed its history of impact. The Vulgate text of Acts 19:19  ZB ( qui fuerant curiosa sectati ) could be interpreted for all forms of “curiosity” ( curiositas ). Very different scripts could be considered dangerous books with “curious” content.

reformation

Book burnings that explicitly referred to Acts 19:19  ZB took place in the early days of the Reformation. In March 1518, students from Wittenberg burned around 800 prints of Tetzel's and Wimpina's indulgence theses on the town's market square . Melanchthon also justified the burning of the bull threatening excommunication together with books of canon law on December 10, 1520 with this passage from the Bible. In retrospect, Martin Luther wrote : It was "eyn old herkumner prauch, vorgifftig, boß bucher vorprennenn, wie wyr leßen in Actis Apostolorum 19 ..." However, this traditional argument was only one reason among others for the action.

Roman inquisition

Title page of the index of books banned by the Inquisition from the tenure of Pope Benedict XIV (1758). The quotation Acts 19:19 below a representation of the burning of the books at Ephesus.

On the title coppers of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum , the papal censorship authority's right to control all knowledge was symbolically depicted when the burning of heretics had long since become obsolete in the 18th century: the edition of 1711 shows how the Holy Spirit kindles the fire as a banishing ray in who burn the forbidden books. But since the reign of Benedict XIV (1758), the scene from Acts 19:19  ZB has been set on the title (photo). Since the owners throw their books into the fire themselves, this is (according to Hubert Wolf ) a more enlightened view of mankind of the Roman Inquisition, which relied on arguments to convince the erring of the Catholic truth. This iconography remained in effect on the editions of the index until the 19th century, after which a cover image was completely dispensed with.

Luther Bible

In the Biblia Deudsch of 1545, Luther translated περίεργα períerga in Acts 19:19 as “furious art”, a formulation that was retained in the 1912 revision of the text. The Stuttgart Jubilee Bible, which was widely received in German-speaking Protestantism in the 20th century , appropriately explained that it was about ancient magic papyri: “Many such magic papers have recently been brought to light.” Then follows the application for the modern Bible reader: “It would be desirable that some publishing booksellers and modern writers would follow this noble example, “namely by burning their books by hand.

Book burning in Düsseldorf 1965

The Düsseldorf local group of the youth association for decided Christianity was encouraged by studying Acts 19,18-19 EU to burn so-called dirty and trash literature  on October 3, 1965 with the approval of the regulatory office on the banks of the Rhine, including books by Günter Grass , Erich Kästner , Albert Camus , Vladimir Nabokov and Françoise Sagan . Apart from the 20 to 30 members of the group, there were only a few spectators present, including some invited press representatives who made the event known beyond the Federal Republic of Germany and who dealt critically with it. The Public Committee of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland criticized the book burning, and the EKD Council also distanced itself sharply. The then Bishop of Berlin-Brandenburg, Otto Dibelius , on the other hand, clearly took the side of the young people: “You have to show the courage to free yourself externally from everything that damages you internally - every righteous Christian will understand that . “The young pietists were struck by the storm they had triggered with their action ; they said they either did not know about the book burnings of 1933 or they had not thought of it. Adelheid von Saldern puts the action in the context of a “cultural moralism” that was widespread in the Federal Republic of the 1950s and 1960s: “In both Christian churches at that time, believers were involved in organizations such as“ Aktion Sorge um Deutschland ”and“ Clean canvas campaign »."

Web links

Commons : Ephesus Book Burning  - Collection of Images

literature

  • Rudolf Pesch : The Acts of the Apostles. Part 2: Acts 13–28 (= Evangelical-Catholic Commentary . Volume 5/1), 1st edition of the study edition, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2012. ISBN 978-3-7887-2601-0 .
  • Jürgen Roloff: The Acts of the Apostles (= New Testament German . Volume 5, revision) Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2010. ISBN 978-3-525-51361-3 .
  • Adelheid von Saldern: The book burning of 1965 and its contemporary history networking . In: Frank Bajohr et al. (Ed.): More than a story: Contemporary historical perspectives on the Federal Republic , Wallstein, Göttingen 2016, pp. 97–112.
  • Thomas Werner : Liquidate the mistake. Book burnings in the Middle Ages. (= Publications of the Max Planck Institute for History . Volume 225), ISBN 978-3-525-35880-1 , 1st edition Göttingen 2007.

Individual evidence

  1. Rudolf Pesch: The Acts of the Apostles. Volume 2: Acts 13–28 , Neukirchen-Vluyn 2012, p. 170.
  2. Rudolf Pesch: The Acts of the Apostles. Part 2: Acts 13–28 , Neukirchen-Vluyn 2012, pp. 170 f.
  3. Jürgen Roloff: The Acts of the Apostles , Göttingen 2010, p. 287.
  4. Rudolf Pesch: The Acts of the Apostles. Volume 2: Acts 13–28 , Neukirchen-Vluyn 2012, p. 173 f.
  5. Greek-German dictionary on the writings of the New Testament and early Christian literature by Walter Bauer, 6th revised edition, ed. by Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1988, column 1303.
  6. ^ Thomas Werner: Liquidate the error: Book burnings in the Middle Ages . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, p. 151 f.
  7. Thomas Werner: Liquidate the error. Book burnings in the Middle Ages. Göttingen 2007, pp. 144-150
  8. ^ Thomas Werner: Liquidate the error: Book burnings in the Middle Ages . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, p. 181 f.
  9. ^ Thomas Werner: Liquidate the error: Book burnings in the Middle Ages . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, p. 187.
  10. Thomas Kaufmann: The beginning of the Reformation: Studies on the contextuality of theology, journalism and staging of Luther and the Reformation movement Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2018, p. 187.
  11. Martin Luther: Why the Bapst and seyner Jungernn book of Doct. Martino Luther to be pre-lit (WA 7.161 ff.).
  12. Hubert Wolf: Index: The Vatican and the forbidden books . CH Beck, Munich 2007, p. 57 f.
  13. Stuttgart Jubilee Bible with explanatory notes . Privilege. Württemb. Biblical Institute Stuttgart 1937, reprint 1951, p. (NT) 217.
  14. Ferdinand Ranft: A light into the dark German land. The book burning of the Young League for Decisive Christianity. In: Die Zeit , 42/1965 ( online ).
  15. Adelheid von Saldern: The Book Burning of 1965 and its Contemporary History Networking , Göttingen 2014, p. 102.
  16. ^ Otto Dibelius: Z ur Düsseldorfer book burning . In: York-Gothart Mix (ed.): Art freedom and censorship in the Federal Republic of Germany , Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2014, p. 247 f.
  17. Adelheid von Saldern: The Book Burning of 1965 and its Contemporary History Networking , Göttingen 2014, p. 104.