dead philosophers put in and out of hell

"La Mothe le Vayer discourses at length [in De la vertu des payens, 1642] on the piety and salvation of Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Epicurus, and Confucius, though he is not necessarily convinced of the virtues of all the followers of these righteous infidels. In his opinion, the fate of Aristotle is dubious but hopeful, and he obviously would like to save Julian the Apostate, whose virtues must be commended even though his attitude toward Christianity is deplorable. During the remainder of the seventeenth century, the question of the redemption of the pious pagans twisted back and forth between optimistic and pessimistic convictions so that a dead philosopher saved by one human redeemer might be sent to the Pit by another."

-- Mysteriously Meant, The Rediscovery of Pagan Symbolism and Allegorical Interpretation in the Renaissance, Don Cameron Allen, 1970, p. 34.