Space and Power in Byzantine Accounts of the Aerial Tollhouses

Abstract

The idea that the souls of the deceased undertake a journey to heaven while adverse powers try to hinder their ascent was common to many religions in (Late) Antiquity. These adversaries were sometimes presented as military opponents and othertimes as tollkeepers (telonia). Byzantine Christianity elaborated upon the idea of the aerial tollkeepers: every soul, accompanied by benign angels, encounters tollhouses, which are guarded by demons. Each tollhouse is responsible for one kind of sin. The demons in each tollhouse demand satisfaction for the respective unconfessed sins, which the soul pays with good deeds done during lifetime. If a soul runs out of good deeds before it has passed through the last tollhouse, it is condemned. The imagery of the tollkeepers was widespread among Byzantine Christians, coexisting with other, often contradicting notions. It was neither condemned nor officially recognised by the Byzantine Church. The stories of the aerial tollhouses reflect perceptions of power relations in the space between heaven and earth, between earthly life and places of eternal reward or damnation: whereas in other narratives the demons act as enemies or raiders in a disputed area, the demons sitting in the tollhouses function as executors of the divine law in a civil environment. Moreover, unlike apocalypses in which he acts as an absolute monarch, showing mercy at his will, God is not present in the accounts of the tollhouses. Yet in the imaginary landscape of these accounts there exists no space between heaven and earth which is not under God’s distant, but undisputed reign.