The answer
No one — no matter how accomplished in wisdom, knowledge, education, or piety — can see his soul; although he is certain of its existence and its heavenly value. And it is impossible for him to contain or measure his rational mind by merely physical or material means.
When we meet Jesus the Lord of glory in the clouds, the faithful will gather together as a holy heavenly bride; adorned with the righteousness of the heavenly Bridegroom who is the habitation of wonder for the heavenly beings and their love. We will stand in wonder at how we were not able— while we lived in the world — to comprehend the truth about our souls; for which God Himself cares, and pours out His splendor upon them, and which will live with Him in the exalted Jerusalem, among the heavenly hosts of exceeding beauty.
St. Jacob of Sarug says, “were the Creator to hold the whole world in one hand, and the soul in another hand, the soul would outweigh all other creatures. He knows how precious is the pearl (the soul) and He alone is able to describe its worth. He measures the soul the against the whole world and sets its value, for it is more precious than the whole world. Nothing in the world compares with it, nothing in the whole world is more valuable. Indeed, the whole world is nothing, but the soul is something. The world shall fail, but the soul shall not dissolve away with it. The world is like grass (worthless), but the soul is the image of divinity … If a person gains the whole world but loses his own soul, what would he own if his soul is no longer his? When the Son of God created the soul He gave it His image. And He Himself put on its image from the womb, when He saved it. He says to us: What is its worth, and how good is it? No one else knows what the soul is but He. When He taught the multitudes, He said to them that a person’s soul is more precious than all possessions.452
453
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
452 St. Jacob of Sarug, Memre 30 (see Behnam Sony, Man in the Teaching of St Jacob of Sarug, 1995).