Aretalogy
An aretalogy (Greek: Αρεταλογία), from ἀρετή (aretḗ, “virtue”) + -logy,or aretology[1][2] (from ancient Greek aretê, "excellence, virtue") in the strictest sense is a narrative about a divine figure's miraculous deeds[3] where a deity's attributes are listed, in the form of poem or text, in the first person.[4] There is no evidence that these narratives constituted a clearly defined genre but there exists a body of literature that contained praise for divine miracles.[7] In the Greco-Roman world, aretologies represent a religious branch of rhetoric and are a prose development of the hymn as praise poetry.[8] The earliest records of divine acts emerged from cultic hymns for these deities, were inscribed in stones, and displayed in temples.[1] The Greek aretologos (ἀρετολόγος, "virtue-speaker") was a temple official who recounted aretologies and may have also interpreted dreams.