This chapter offers a survey of some basic information on the life and writings of Manganeios Prodromos. It concludes with an annotated edition and translation of a poem dedicated to Manuel I Komnenos as an example of how his verse might be presented to readers today.

In ancient Greek culture of all periods, the notion of kleos is linked in a fundamental way to the poet’s voice, and no adequate discussion of that voice could ignore this topic. Itranslate kleos by ’fame’, ’glory’ or ’renown’, but some further glossing of this complex term is immediately necessary. Kleos is etymologically and semantically related to the verb kluo (’I hear’) – kleos is ’that which is heard’, ’a report’, even ’rumour’. So Telemachus, when he returns to Ithaca, asks Eumaeus for the kleos from town. Kleos is applied to what people talk (of), and an object like Nestor’s shield has a ’kleos which reaches heaven’, and heroes’ armour is often described as kluta (’with kleos’, ’talked of’). ’Things, places and persons acquire kleos as they acquire an identity in the human world, as stories are told about them.’

This Chapter explains in detail how Galen endows medical science with moral probity. In broad outline, he extrapolates moral principles from his ethical programme to feed into his medical accounts and thus reveal his personal responses to what he represents as the immorality of other doctors. Assigning praise and blame or stressing social shame and fear are central moral-didactic devices here, as is reproach with a view to moral amendment or Galen’s attempts at self-deprecation in order to affect his readers’ moral activity.

Generations of Christians, Janet Soskice demonstrates, once knew God and Christ by hundreds of remarkable names. These included the appellations ‘Messiah’, ‘Emmanuel’, ‘Alpha’, ‘Omega’, ‘Eternal’, ‘All-Powerful’, ‘Lamb’, ‘Lion’, ‘Goat’, ‘One’, ‘Word’, ‘Serpent’ and ‘Bridegroom’. In her much-anticipated new book, Soskice argues that contemporary understandings of divinity could be transformed by a return to a venerable analogical tradition of divine naming. These ancient titles – drawn from scripture – were chanted and sung, crafted and invoked (in polyphony and plainsong) as they were woven into the worship of the faithful. However, during the sixteenth century Descartes moved from ‘naming’ to ‘defining’ God via a series of metaphysical attributes. This made God a thing among things: a being amongst beings. For the author, reclaiming divine naming is not only overdue. It can also re-energise the relationship between philosophy and religious tradition. This path-breaking book shows just how rich and revolutionary such reclamation might be.

A gift of a patron necessitated a response on the part of the recipient, which most often took the form of loyalty and other honors befitting the gift. Especially magnanimous benefactions were considered “divine” and compelled “divine” honors, including festivals, processions, priesthoods, crowns, and hymns. Chapter 5 presents a survey of the honors-for-benefits system inherent in systems of patronage and benefaction in the ancient Mediterranean world, with attention to the varieties of “divine” rewards requited for “divine” gifts, including especially divine hymns. This survey contextualizes the divine honors requitted to the Lamb, namely, allegiance to the point of death and hymns of praise, which befit his divine gifts as God’s royal vicegerent.

A gift of a patron necessitated a response on the part of the recipient, which most often took the form of loyalty and other honors befitting the gift. Especially magnanimous benefactions were considered “divine” and compelled “divine” honors, including festivals, processions, priesthoods, crowns, and hymns. Chapter 5 presents a survey of the honors-for-benefits system inherent in systems of patronage and benefaction in the ancient Mediterranean world, with attention to the varieties of “divine” rewards requited for “divine” gifts, including especially divine hymns. This survey contextualizes the divine honors requitted to the Lamb, namely, allegiance to the point of death and hymns of praise, which befit his divine gifts as God’s royal vicegerent.

Ch 2: The second chapter looks at the complex confrontation of Christian lyric with death. Finality lends meaning to the life of the faithful, and lyric allows the poet and the reader to undo that death, to turn it into “love.” More concretely, Clément Marot’s word manipulations consistently use the praise of the deceased as a means of promoting the pursuit of peace, as if death on earth were unmade, at the same time, by the turning of “mort” into “amour.”

Chapter 11 outlines some positive parenting strategies designed to be of practical use for parents of children and young people. We discuss using praise in preference to criticism, setting out clear expectations of behaviour and identifying ways to develop our children’s independence. We also discuss how our own behaviour directly influences children and young people, so modelling an approach where we can be calm and engaged in problem solving has a more powerful impact than anything we tell our children to do.

I return to hymnography in this chapter, looking at the development of a full calendar of Marian praise between about 600 and 1000 CE. The main source of Marian hymnography is the major feasts, which include the Virgin’s Nativity, Entrance into the Temple, Annunciation, Dormition and others. The festal hymns, which include kontakia, stichera, kanons and various other forms, provide Christological teaching, although intercessory supplication to the Virgin may also play a role in short hymns known as theotokia. It is especially in the weekday services that we find intense supplication to the Theotokos, particularly on Wednesdays and Fridays. Her human lament at the foot of the cross, which was remembered on those days throughout the liturgical year, may symbolise the contrition that was expected of monks and nuns at all times; it also highlights Mary’s human qualities, which came to be understood as models for ascetics to imitate.

Beginning with “multidisciplinary approaches to the study of self,” the chapter explores the “collective experience” of Africa through poetry. The chapter, in its depiction of the interwoven relationship between self and narrative, establishes the perpetuity of self with words such as “ever-changing,” “evolving,” “becoming,” and “actualization.” Further, the chapter establishes how self is discovered through a consciousness of belonging to a larger society vis-à-vis self’s relationship with other aspects of the society. Poetry gives the reader the opportunity to feel a larger expression of the narrative, such as the energies, events, and experiences felt by the poet. However, understanding these expressions requires the possession of the same level of sensitivity by the reader. With references to his poetic collection, the author proceeds to examine the narration of self to portray existing socio-cultural values/desires and their importance in Africa. They include eulogizing and celebrating individuals, extolling the mother both as the carrier and nurturer of life, and the pride in face marks as ethnic identity, amongst others.

Instead of taking the impossibility of certain knowledge in experience as an intellectual problem, Cavell understands it as an existential condition. Philosophers have traditionally disavowed that condition by turning skepticism into an intellectual problem. The pathology behind that disavowal becomes the center of what Krebs calls Cavell’s “clinical turn.” The philosophical criticism resulting from that turn involves a radical change in attitude, where thinking is – as Cavell puts it – a mode of praise. This essay argues that thinking as praise makes receptiveness paramount, and requires a reconnection with feeling and passion that brings the body back into philosophy.

I return to hymnography in this chapter, looking at the development of a full calendar of Marian praise between about 600 and 1000 CE. The main source of Marian hymnography is the major feasts, which include the Virgin’s Nativity, Entrance into the Temple, Annunciation, Dormition and others. The festal hymns, which include kontakia, stichera, kanons and various other forms, provide Christological teaching, although intercessory supplication to the Virgin may also play a role in short hymns known as theotokia. It is especially in the weekday services that we find intense supplication to the Theotokos, particularly on Wednesdays and Fridays. Her human lament at the foot of the cross, which was remembered on those days throughout the liturgical year, may symbolise the contrition that was expected of monks and nuns at all times; it also highlights Mary’s human qualities, which came to be understood as models for ascetics to imitate.

The Triune God’s intrinsically glorious singularity and experiences of its gracious presence and the objective reality of “evils” and experiences of horrendous suffering are both “mysteries.” Both are “unmanageable” by human creatures. The appropriate initial response to each is silence.They differ in that God’s concrete reality is intrinsically a “positive” mystery a se that cannot be comprehensively “grasped” cognitively or “explained,” whereas particular “evils” are “negative” mysteries crying out for explanations leading to their eradication. If “positive mystery” is not acknowledged, it may be hoped that moral and natural evils can all be “explained” and eliminated. So their “mystery” is not intrinsic. If “positive mystery” is acknowledged, the concrete actuality of “negative evils” is itself an a-rational and inexplicable reality. Because God is intrinsically “mystery” God cannot be the causal explanation of the reality of “negative mysteries.” God is not a useful “explanatory hypothesis.”The singularity of God’s intrinsic glory entails God’s intrinsic “uselessness.”

Biblical interpreters assume that the moral concepts in Proverbs resemble virtues as understood by moral philosophers, especially Aristotle. No study, however, has considered how the moral-philosophical criteria for defining virtue compare to the concepts in Proverbs. I argue that Proverbs’ moral instructions (focusing on Proverbs 10-29) cohere with Aristotle’s understanding of moral virtue and vice in the Nicomachean Ethics, including his notion of the mean. That is, certain concepts in Proverbs are virtues and vices in the Aristotelian sense. To demonstrate this, I argue that (1) virtues of action and emotion in Proverbs are identifiable through praise and blame; that (2) the vices reflect excess and deficiency in action and emotion; and that (3) the virtues “hit the mean” of these actions and emotions.

Effusive and earnest gratitude was a trait Cicero identified as foundational in his character, particularly when playing the role of a friend. He expressed this particularly through enthusiastic and even hyperbolic praise of his friends, especially after his return from exile. When he applied this treatment to Pompey in Pro Balbo and to Caesar in De Provinciis Consularibus and Pro Marcello, the result was extravagant panegyric. He frames his praise of Pompey and Caesar as a show of gratitude in return for their support and friendship, an act of reciprocity rather than sycophancy. The persona of friend is also used to justify his surrendering of previously held positions in favor of compromise and reconciliation. He also sought to exert pressure through “friendly” advice combined with praise, to Caesar in Pro Rabirio Postumo and Pro Marcello, and to Dolabella and other young men in his letters and the First Philippic.

This chapter examines what Trump might gain from perpetually evaluating others in his verbal interactions. The analysis presented here explores Trump’s evaluations of his guests at the 2017 Black History Month Listening Session. The political stakes of the event were high, as the President who had been repeatedly accused of racist and xenophobic remarks led a meeting of Black Americans in celebration of Black historical figures. Yet during the event, Trump repeatedly placed himself in the role of “evaluator” and positioned his guests as “evaluatees.” With each guest likely noticing that their own turn to be evaluated was soon at hand, each worked to provide Trump ample evidence of their fealty in exchange for his positive evaluation. Their demonstrations of commitment and loyalty to Trump garnered his praise only when the guests provided evidence that mets Trump’s implicit criteria, which he repeatedly modeled in his evaluation of others around the table. As a result, Trump and guests worked together on the fly to achieve his position as “Evaluator in Chief” and further solidify his public image as the “Boss.”