Lucian's writings were mostly forgotten during the Middle Ages. The "Suda", a tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia, concludes that Lucian's soul is burning in Hell for his negative remarks about Christians in the "Passing of Peregrinus". Lucian's writings were rediscovered during the Renaissance and almost immediately became popular with the Renaissance humanists. By 1400, there were just as many Latin translations of the works of Lucian as there were for the writings of Plato and Plutarch. By ridiculing plutocracy as absurd, Lucian helped facilitate one of Renaissance humanism's most basic themes. His "Dialogues of the Dead" were especially popular and were widely used for moral instruction. As a result of this popularity, Lucian's writings had a profound influence on writers from the Renaissance and the Early Modern period.