Questions And Deeds

Quis est autem iste... Tam magnus, de quo ego talia audio? Quaerit philosophari, et esse bonus. Non est enim quaerendum quis erat, sed cum Nathanaele accedendum et experiendum, ut sic sequeretur vestigia ipsius. Psal xxxiii: Accedite ad eum, et illuminamini: et facies vestrae non confundentur. Sed iste in sola ratione inquisitionis stare voluit, et non exercere opera, simile quid faciens istis, de quibus dicit Aristoteles in libro IV Ethicorum: Ad rationem confugientes, quaerunt philosophari et esse boni. Simile aliquid faciens infirmis, qui medicos quidem audiunt studiose, faciunt autem operandorum nihil. Et quemadmodum isti numquam bene habebunt corpus sic curati, ita nec illi bene habebunt animam sic philosophantes. Quid enim valet bona audire, et non facere? Jacob i: Qui auditor est verbi el non factor, comparabitur viro consideranti vultum nativitatis suae in speculo; consideravit enim se, et abiit, et statim oblitus est qualis fuerit. Sanctus Albertus Magnus Commentarium In Evangelium Lucam, Caput IX Source: Here p616

'Who is this...' 1 Is He so great 'concerning whom I hear such things?' he asks for his philosophising and to be good. But it must not be asked who He was, but with Nathanael one must draw near and one must experience 2 if one would follow in His way. In the thirty third Psalm, 'Come to Him and be enlightened and your faces shall not be confounded.' 3 But Herod who wished only to stand in the reason of questioning and not to exert himself in works is like the one of whom Aristotle speaks in the fourth book of his Ethics, 'Flying to reason they seek to philosophise and be good.' 4 He is similar to a sick man who carefully listens to physicians and then does nothing of what is prescribed. And as they will never have a body that is healthy, so they who philosophise in such a way shall never have a healthy soul. What good does it do to listen and not act? In the first chapter of the letter of James, 'He who hears the Word and does not do it shall be like a man who considers his own face in a mirror, and having considered it he goes away and instantly forgets what sort of man he was.' 5 Saint Albert The Great, Commentary On The Gospel of St Luke, Chapter 9 1 Lk 9.9 2 Jn 1.45-51 3 Ps 33.6 4 Aris Nic Eth 1105b 10-18 5 James 1.23-24