David Bentley Hart’s recent article on the toll houses is very welcome in that the discussion has turned away from refuting the occasional “pro-toller” to a scholarly and detached examination of texts and contexts and the theological implications of their worldview. I do not intend to explain that the notion of the aerial toll houses has never been the official dogma of the Orthodox Church, as this has been demonstrated in other publications, notably by Stephen Shoemaker on Public Orthodoxy (although I often have to explain this to colleagues who are not acquainted with how theological authority worked in Byzantine Christianity). References to the toll houses are found exclusively in pastoral/edifying texts, usually side-by-side with other, rival notions of posthumous judgment. There was a consensus among the theologically educated, as there is now, that attempts to speak about afterlife are figurative, fragmentary and not conclusive – although most contemporary Christians would not agree with their pre-modern co-religionists on the necessity of constantly keeping the horrors of the judgment in mind as a means to avoid doing evil. Yet, as a Byzantinist, I am fascinated by the texts on the aerial toll houses and wish to share some observations regarding two points: the democratization and the individuation of judgment that distinguish these texts from notions on posthumous judgment found in other Late Antique and Byzantine texts. Continue reading