ACC ~ 1 Timothy 6 v16b

CHARITY DOES NOT LOVE THE CORRUPTIBLE. ORIGEN: We must understand, therefore, that this charity, which God is, in whoever it exists loves nothing earthly, nothing material, nothing corruptible. It is against its nature to love anything corruptible, seeing that it is itself the fount of incorruption. For, because God, “who only has immortality and inhabits light inaccessible,” is charity, it is charity alone that possesses immortality. COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, PROLOGUE 2.28.

THE SOUL IMAGES GOD’S INCORRUPTIBILITY. METHODIUS: For the unbegotten and incorporeal beauty, which neither begins nor is corruptible but is unchangeable and grows not old and is in need of nothing, he resting in himself and in the very light which is in unspeakable and inapproachable places, embracing all things in the circumference of his power, creating and arranging, made the soul after the image of his image. Therefore, also, it is reasonable and immortal. THE BANQUET OF THE TEN VIRGINS 6.1.

BEYOND COMPREHENSION. CHRYSOSTOM: And pay heed to the accuracy with which Paul speaks. He did not say, “Who is an unapproachable light” but “Who dwells in unapproachable light.” Why? So that you may learn that if the dwelling is unapproachable, so much more so is the God that dwells in it. But Paul did not say this to make you suspect that there is a house or place surrounding God. Rather, he wished you to have a deeper and superior knowledge that God is beyond our comprehension. … A thing is unapproachable which, from the start, cannot be investigated nor can anyone come near to it. We call the sea incomprehensible because, even when divers lower themselves into its waters and go down to a great depth, they cannot find the bottom. We call that thing unapproachable which, from the start, cannot be searched out or investigated. ON THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD 3.2.

CREATION BY MEANS OF LIGHT. AMBROSE: There would be no purpose in the world if it were not seen. In fact, God himself was in the light, because he “dwells in light inaccessible,” and he “was the true light that enlightens every man who comes into the world.” But he wishes the light to be such as might be perceived by mortal eyes. The person who desires to erect a house as a fitting habitation for the head of a family determines first how it may receive light abundantly before he lays the foundation. This is the first requisite. If this is lacking, the whole house is without beauty and is uninhabitable. It is light which sets off the other beautiful objects in the house. SIX DAYS OF CREATION 1.9.33.

GOD IS LIGHT. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: God is light: the highest, the unapproachable, the ineffable, that can neither be conceived in the mind nor uttered with the lips, that gives life to every reasoning creature. He is in the world of thought what the sun is in the world of sense; presenting himself to our minds in proportion as we are cleansed; and loved in proportion as he is presented to our mind; and again, conceived in proportion as we love him; himself contemplating and comprehending himself and pouring himself out on what is external to him. That light, I mean, which is contemplated in the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, whose riches is their unity of nature and the one out-leaping of their brightness. ORATIONS 40.5.

SEEN WITH THE EYES OF THE HEART. AUGUSTINE: If you ask whether he can also be seen at any time as he is, I answer that this was promised to his sons, of whom it is said, “We know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” If you ask by what means we shall see him, I answer: as the angels see, for we shall then be equal to them, as the angels see those things which are called visible; but no one has ever seen God nor can see him, because “he inhabits light inaccessible,” and his nature is invisible as it is immortal. LETTERS 147.15.37.

CHARITY THE EYES OF THE HEART. AUGUSTINE: This, then, is charity, however small a thing it appears to us, as it inheres in our will; “it is not seen in any locality, nor sought by bodily eyes, nor limited by our sight, nor held by touch, nor heard by its utterance, nor perceived in its approach.” How much more true this is of God, of whom charity is the pledge within us! If our interior man is an image of him—insignificant, indeed—not begotten of him but created by him, and, although it is still renewed day by day, it now dwells in such light that no faculty of corporeal sight comes near to it, and if those things which we perceive with the eyes of the heart by means of that light are distinguished from each other and separated by no intervals of space, how much more is this true of God, who inhabits light inaccessible to the bodily senses, to whom there can be no approach except for the clean of heart! LETTERS 147.18.44.

ENLIGHTENED BY THE LIGHT. CASSIODORUS: Since Paul says, “Only he that has immortality and inhabits inaccessible light,” how can the psalmist say here, “Come to him, and be enlightened?But the problem is solved by this brief statement of the truth: his light is said to be inaccessible when the unique and almighty nature of its substance is described; but when the grace of the sacred Godhead pours forth, we both approach him and obtain blessed enlightenment. EXPLANATION OF THE PSALMS 33.6.

1 Tim