St. Paul at Ephesus
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Acts 19:19
The passage
Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.
Acts 19:19
About this plate
A fire burning on the ground in an open square, and people feeding it with books. A man at the left hoists a volume over his head to throw it in; another kneels at the flames with an armful; a third leans in with a bundle. Paul stands above them on a step with one arm raised. Behind, a classical temple front and a heavy sky.
The burning is being done by the owners. That is what makes the plate uncomfortable, and Doré draws it clearly: nobody is being forced, there are no soldiers, the men throwing books on the fire are the men who used them.
The verse is the one place in Acts that stops to do arithmetic: Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.
They counted first. Somebody added up the value of what was about to be destroyed, and the figure went into the record. It is a very human touch in a very unsettling scene.
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