Intellectual is another of those words that has gone from approbative to pejorative in recent decades.

For Isaiah Shembe, this approbative Western gaze, however cracked, affirmed what a tactical success his acceptance of dance had been: His initial discountenancing of it had been influenced by sensitivity to outsiders' censure; now came their approval, vindicating his subsequently defiant prodance stance and, for both sides, bringing his movement out of the political woods.

Obviously, the adjectives wise, good, and virtuous are all highly approbative, and most important they express Josephus's own evaluation.