Books for sale

“T.B.S. - TO BE SOLD”

                                               The First Idea

The phrase in English more commonly is “For Sale”.  The French say “à vendre”; the Dutch (the Flemish and South Africans) say “te koop”. 

In German one finds “zu verkaufen”; and in Italian it is “in vendita”.

There also is the imperative form, “Sell!” In the New Testament (Matt. 19.21)

the English text, “…go sell…” renders the Greek words, “hypage poleson”,

which are translated in Latin as “…vade vende quae habes.”  This, of course,

is Jesus saying, “Go sell what you have (and give to the poor).”  In the Bible’s

Old Testament, the other side of this transaction includes such ideas as

“…buy Truth” (Prov.23.23) and “…also Wisdom, Instruction and Understanding.”  Finally, in the New Testament, one finds the teaching, as well, that Christians can “purchase” (I Tim. 3.9,13), and “hold, the Mystery of

the Faith in a pure conscience”.  (Latin: “…habentes mysterium in conscientia pura”).

                                                                 The Second Idea

The world’s finest books and art are not all necessarily to be found in government or other public libraries and museums.  Nor are all the science,

research, inventions and discoveries necessarily to be looked for in universities and well-funded institutes.  There are traditions, values, and, indeed, important functions also in private ownership – by individuals or in collective forms – both of human artefacts (artistic, literary, scientific, practical, etc.); and of human knowledge.  In the case of books, which are acquired by large libraries, it is truly notable that, whilst some books have great age and some have great beauty and are justly prized, there is other written matter in books and documents whose value lies in their intrinsic content even if, secondarily, their age is also relevant.

Thus, for these and other reasons (such as previous celebrity ownership or associations) there is a book trade.

There is trading in juvenile and popular books, both new and second-hand and there also is a trade in rare and antiquarian documents and volumes. In addition, an international industry exists relating to the production and trade in school and scholarly literature.  This includes common school and university textbooks on the one hand, and research and reference books, studies, scholarly societies’ journals, and books relating to individual scholars and their work (“Festschriften”, biographies, etc.) on the other hand.

The universities, and the book and information industries (including internet aspects) with their trade; but also the private collectors in their own roles, are the vehicles – poetically like caravans on the ancient Silk Road or gondolas on the Venice canals – transporting human culture and spirit in literary and artistic expressions, not only from place to place, but across generations.

 Intellectual and creative original work – visual or written (art or book, or illustrated book, etc.) - requires this cultural transport, as in the exchange aspects of “buying and selling”.  One role of this commerce in books and art is to find a secure and safe place in a well-maintained collection.  Such functions are often those of specialist book sellers or art galleries, although as noted, scholars’, private collectors’ and other individuals’ buying and selling play an important part also in the world’s intellectual and cultural conservation.

                                             The Third Idea

On the planetary internet it is not difficult to find the “Welcome to the Owen St. Victor Website”.  Its purpose is to assist the transmission and preservation, at least in part, of his work – which primarily contributes to the understanding of religious philosophies (expressed in art, words, and ritual) world-wide.

He was supported in his comparative and historical research by his significant collection of specialist and rare and out-of-print books published around the globe which he collected for seven decades, and by the Leuven university’s several libraries near his home in Flemish Brabant.  St. Victor’s original, authoritative books are mostly in the fields of the Christian Mysticism found in its traditional practitioners and of the Christian Mysteries as found particularly in the Greek texts of the New Testament.  A few of his manuscripts (of among some 70 unpublished works) deal also with the Old Testament and the Jewish Kabbalah; with ancient Greek and Buddhist mysticism; and with other religious and secular philosophies.  His own doctoral dissertation was on the philosophy of education, and the metaphysical and physical laws of Change for which he proposed a science termed, “Diapherics”.  He also wrote a volume of poetry, “The Firebird”.

The Owen St. Victor website has several major aspects.  They indicate, to some extent, the nature of the author’s literary and scholarly productivity, but also the quality of his works by reproductions of his book covers, with symbolic art in front, texts in back; and here, by some detailed Tables of Contents, and sample internal texts and visual matter including charts, symbols, tabulations, and re-translations of Greek, for example.

Another aspect, included here, are some letters and documents which help to characterize the author’s scholarly authority; and some other matter (autobiographical) which witness to the life of the Spirit and, as in Owen’s case the charismatic character associated with one who was a Christian mystic.  One purpose of all this is to have “buyers and sellers” (individual collectors, universities, retail book dealers or specialist libraries etc.) to have basic information for their follow-up inquiries.  These can be addressed to:

“Executors Estate of Owen St. Victor”

andrew.victor@telenet.be