Unlike scientific theories, philosophical theories are not empirically falsifiable. For example, you do not go about attempting to disprove the philosophical assertion "LSD opens up new levels of reality" by studying in the laboratory the effects of LSD. To be sure, such facts might be helpful, but we could not judge their importance until we had wrestled with the more fundamental questions "What is reality?" and "Flow do we know something is real in the first place?"

Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.

What then? Must one pray also for the pagans who died before Christ’s coming, and not anathematize them?

By no means should you anathematize someone who died before the coming of Christ. Even in Hades the preaching of Christ came, one single time. For John the Forerunner, going there beforehand, preached Christ. And hear what St. Peter has to say about Christ: “Going forth,” he says, “he preached even to those in Hades, who were sometime disobedient” (cf. 1 Peter 3:19-20). Now then, it is found in old tradition that there was a scholar who cursed the philosopher Plato exceedingly. So, during his sleep, Plato appeared to him and said, “Man, stop cursing me, you are only harming yourself. That I was a sinful man, I do not deny. But when Christ came down to Hades, there was in fact no one who believed in him before I did.” But when you hear these things, do not assume that there always exists [a possibility for] repentance in Hades; for this happened only once, because Christ had descended to those beneath the earth, so that he might visit those who had fallen asleep from all ages.