The doctrine of aerial toll houses pre-dates Christianity, just as the doctrines of heaven and hell and bodily resurrection do. These ideas were found in Zoroastrianism and later incorporated into Judaism. The aerial toll house doctrine in Gnosticism seems to come from combining elements Judaic account borrowed from Zoroastrianism (Cf. Chinvat Bridge) with the Egyptian afterlife narrative from the Book of the Dead. Versions or variations of the doctrine in Egyptian and Zoroastrian sources doesn't indicate anything as to its validity per se.

A version of the doctrine is found in Gnostic texts but it was also espoused in some form by Philo of Alexandria in De Somniis, a pre-Christian Jewish source, and was fairly widespread in both East and West in the early Church. (Cf. the "Brig o' Dread" in Germanic and English folk Christianity.) It wasn't Gnostic in origin by any means.