Aerial Toll House
Aerial toll houses refers to a teaching held by many Eastern Orthodox Saints and Eastern Orthodox Christians, about the immediate state of the soul after death. According to this doctrine, "following a person's death the soul leaves the body, and is escorted to God by angels. During this journey the soul passes through an aerial realm, which is inhabited by wicked spirits (Eph 6:12). The soul encounters these demons at various points referred to as 'toll-houses' where the demons then attempt to accuse it of sin and, if possible, drag the soul into hell."
This teaching is extensively alluded to in hagiographical and other spiritual texts of the church, though it has never been formally promulgated by any ecumenical council and so remains in the realm of "theologoumena", or private theological opinion (as opposed to doctrines formally proclaimed by a church council). Many Orthodox saints and theologians have openly endorsed it, while some bishops and theologians have condemned it as heretical and gnostic in origin.
Read more about Aerial Toll House: The Toll-house Teaching, Controversy
Famous quotes containing the words aerial, toll and/or house:
“A sociosphere of contact, control, persuasion and dissuasion, of exhibitions of inhibitions in massive or homeopathic doses...: this is obscenity. All structures turned inside out and exhibited, all operations rendered visible. In America this goes all the way from the bewildering network of aerial telephone and electric wires ... to the concrete multiplication of all the bodily functions in the home, the litany of ingredients on the tiniest can of food, the exhibition of income or IQ.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“one is in a shoe factory cursing the machine,
one is at the aquarium tending a seal,
one is dull at the wheel of her Ford,
one is at the toll gate collecting,
one is tying the cord of a calf in Arizona,
one is straddling a cello in Russia....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Just the same as a month before,—
The house and the trees,
The barn’s brown gable, the vine by the door,—
Nothing changed but the hives of bees.”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)