Aerial Toll Houses
A vivid tale of the soul after death meeting demonic checkpoints on its ascent
The aerial toll-houses are a belief, found in Eastern ascetic and hagiographic literature, that after death the soul passes through a series of testings by demons who challenge it over particular sins. The teaching is debated within Eastern Orthodoxy itself, where some embrace it and others treat it as imagery; it has never been dogmatically defined, and it is not held in the other Christian traditions.
Key passages(1)
Each passage is tagged by what it does with the idea: explains it, applies it in practice, redefines it with a new meaning, or challenges it. Relevance shows how directly the passage is about this idea.
Life of Antony. (Vita Antoni.) · Athanasius of Alexandria
65. And many monks have related with the greatest agreement and unanimity that many other such like things were done by him. But still these do not seem as marvellous as certain other things appear to
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