WHAT WE ARE TO THINK OF THE PRICE IN THE BUYING OF BOOKS
From what has been said we draw this corollary welcome to us, but (as
we believe) acceptable to few: namely, that no dearness of price ought
to hinder a man from the buying of books, if he has the money that is
demanded for them, unless it be to withstand the malice of the seller
or to await a more favourable opportunity of buying. For if it is
wisdom only that makes the price of books, which is an infinite
treasure to mankind, and if the value of books is unspeakable, as the
premises show, how shall the bargain be shown to be dear where an
infinite good is being bought? Wherefore, that books are to be gladly
bought and unwillingly sold, Solomon, the sun of men, exhorts us in the
Proverbs: Buy the truth, he says, and sell not wisdom. But what we are
trying to show by rhetoric or logic, let us prove by examples from
history. The arch-philosopher Aristotle, whom Averroes regards as the
law of Nature, bought a few books of Speusippus straightway after his
death for 72,000 sesterces. Plato, before him in time, but after him
in learning, bought the book of Philolaus the Pythagorean, from which
he is said to have taken the Timaeus, for 10,000 denaries, as Aulus
Gellius relates in the Noctes Atticae. Now Aulus Gellius relates this
that the foolish may consider how wise men despise money in comparison
with books. And on the other hand, that we may know that folly and
pride go together, let us here relate the folly of Tarquin the Proud in
despising books, as also related by Aulus Gellius. An old woman,
utterly unknown, is said to have come to Tarquin the Proud, the seventh
king of Rome, offering to sell nine books, in which (as she declared)
sacred oracles were contained, but she asked an immense sum for them,
insomuch that the king said she was mad. In anger she flung three
books into the fire, and still asked the same sum for the rest. When
the king refused it, again she flung three others into the fire and
still asked the same price for the three that were left. At last,
astonished beyond measure, Tarquin was glad to pay for three books the
same price for which he might have bought nine. The old woman
straightway disappeared, and was never seen before or after. These
were the Sibylline books, which the Romans consulted as a divine oracle
by some one of the Quindecemvirs, and this is believed to have been the
origin of the Quindecemvirate. What did this Sibyl teach the proud
king by this bold deed, except that the vessels of wisdom, holy books,
exceed all human estimation; and, as Gregory says of the kingdom of
Heaven: They are worth all that thou hast?