David the Invincible or David the Philosopher was a neoplatonist philosopher of the 6th century. [1]
David was a pupil of Olympiodorus in Alexandria. His works, originally written in Greek, survive in medieval Armenian translation, and he was given the byname of "invincible" (Classical Armenian : Անյաղթ; reformed:Անհաղթ, Anhağt) in the Armenian tradition, which considers David himself an Armenian. Whereas, Tara Andrews states his ethnicity is uncertain. [2]
Due to confusion with other authors called David and due to an abundant body of medieval legend, almost nothing is known with certainty about the historical David. Armenian tradition makes him a native of Taron, [3] but this is not substantiated in contemporary sources and may be due to conflation with another person. [4] [5] [6] He was active in Alexandria in Byzantine Egypt, known as an expert in Aristotle's Physics . [7] He supposedly received the byname "invincible" for his exceptional oratory and argumentative skills. [3] David is said to have returned to his native Armenia later in life, where he was active as a teacher, but he came into conflict with the Armenian church and ultimately died in exile in Haghbat. [3]
Of the number of works attributed to him, many are pseudepigraphic or doubtful. The works which can be attributed to him with certainty or at least with some plausibility are not scholarly treatises but propedeutic (introductory) handbooks for use in teaching beginners. They were composed in Greek but survive only in Armenian translation. Philologically, these translations are important representatives of the "Hellenizing" tradition in Armenian literature (Yownaban Dproc‘) of the 6th to 8th centuries. [8] [9]
The David Anhaght Medal, the highest-ranking medal granted by the Armenian Academy of Philosophy, is named after him. [10] David the Invincible (Դավիթ Անհաղթ - David Anhaght, Armenfilm) is a 1978 film by Levon Mkrtchyan.
Ammonius Hermiae was a Greek philosopher from Alexandria in the eastern Roman empire during Late Antiquity. A Neoplatonist, he was the son of the philosophers Hermias and Aedesia, the brother of Heliodorus of Alexandria and the grandson of Syrianus. Ammonius was a pupil of Proclus in Roman Athens, and taught at Alexandria for most of his life, having obtained a public chair in the 470s.
Isaac or Sahak of Armenia was the catholicos of the Armenian Church from c. 387 until c. 438. He is sometimes known as Isaac the Great or Sahak the Parthian in reference to his father's Parthian origin. He was the last Armenian patriarch who was directly descended from Gregory the Illuminator, who converted the Kingdom of Armenia to Christianity in the early fourth century and became the first head of the Armenian Church. He supported Mesrop Mashtots in the creation of the Armenian alphabet and personally participated in the translation of the Bible into Armenian.
Syrianus was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, and head of Plato's Academy in Athens, succeeding his teacher Plutarch of Athens in 431/432 A.D. He is important as the teacher of Proclus, and, like Plutarch and Proclus, as a commentator on Plato and Aristotle. His best-known extant work is a commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle. He is said to have written also on the De Caelo and the De Interpretatione of Aristotle and on Plato's Timaeus.
Syriac literature is literature in the Syriac language. It is a tradition going back to the Late Antiquity. It is strongly associated with Syriac Christianity.
Stephanus of Alexandria was a Byzantine philosopher and teacher who, besides philosophy in the Neo-Platonic tradition, also wrote on alchemy, astrology and astronomy. He was one of the last exponents of the Alexandrian academic tradition before the Islamic conquest of Egypt.
Ghazar Parpetsi was a fifth-to-sixth-century Armenian historian. He had close ties with the powerful Mamikonian noble family and is most prominent for writing a history of Armenia in the last years of the fifth century or at the beginning of the sixth century. The history covers events from 387 to 485, starting with the partition of Armenia between the Byzantine and Sasanian empires and ending with the appointment of Vahan Mamikonian as marzpan (governor) of Sasanian-ruled Armenia. It is the main source for Armenian history in the fifth century and is one of the two main accounts, along with that of Elishe, of the Armenian rebellion of 449–451 led by Vardan Mamikonian
Commentaries on Aristotle refers to the great mass of literature produced, especially in the ancient and medieval world, to explain and clarify the works of Aristotle. The pupils of Aristotle were the first to comment on his writings, a tradition which was continued by the Peripatetic school throughout the Hellenistic period and the Roman era. The Neoplatonists of the Late Roman Empire wrote many commentaries on Aristotle, attempting to incorporate him into their philosophy. Although Ancient Greek commentaries are considered the most useful, commentaries continued to be written by the Christian scholars of the Byzantine Empire and by the many Islamic philosophers and Western scholastics who had inherited his texts.
Michael of Ephesus or Michael Ephesius wrote important commentaries on Aristotle, including the first full commentary on the Sophistical Refutations, which established the regular study of that text.
David was a Greek scholar and a commentator on Aristotle and Porphyry.
Elias was a Greek scholar and a commentator on Aristotle and Porphyry.
The Liber de causis is a philosophical work composed in Arabic in the 9th century. It was once attributed to Aristotle and became popular in West during the Middle Ages, after it was translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona between 1167 and 1187. The original title was كتاب الإيضاح لأرسطوطاليس في الخير المحض Kitāb al-Īḍāḥ li-Arisṭūṭālis fī l-khayr al-maḥd, "The book of Aristotle's explanation of the pure good". Its Latin title, Liber de causis, came into use following its translation. The work was also translated into Armenian and Hebrew. Many Latin commentaries on the work are extant.
Michael Edward Stone is a professor emeritus of Armenian Studies and of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research deals with Armenian studies and with Jewish literature and thought of the Second Temple period. He is also a published poet.
Arakelots Monastery was an Armenian monastery in the historic province of Taron, 11 km south-east of Mush (Muş), in present-day eastern Turkey. According to tradition, Gregory the Illuminator founded the monastery to house relics of several apostles. The monastery was, however, most likely built in the 11th century. During the 12th-13th centuries it was a major center of learning. In the following centuries it was expanded, destroyed and renovated. It remained one of the prominent monasteries of Turkish (Western) Armenia until the Armenian genocide of 1915, when it was attacked and subsequently abandoned. It remained standing until the 1960s when it was reportedly blown up. Today, ruins of the monastery are still visible.
The Acts of Thaddeus is a Greek document written between 544 and 944 CE which purports to describe correspondence between King Abgar V of Edessa and Jesus, which results in Jesus' disciple Thaddeus going to Edessa.
Gohar Muradyan is an Armenian philologist and translator. She is a senior researcher and head of the Department for the Study of Translated Literature at the Institute of Ancient Manuscripts in Yerevan, Armenia.
The late Ottoman genocides is a historiographical theory which sees the concurrent Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian genocides that occurred during the 1910s–1920s as parts of a single event rather than separate events, which were initiated by the Young Turks. Although some sources, including The Thirty-Year Genocide (2019) written by the historians Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi, characterize this event as a genocide of Christians, others such as those written by the historians Dominik J. Schaller and Jürgen Zimmerer contend that such an approach "ignores the Young Turks' massive violence against non-Christians", in particular against Muslim Kurds.
The Hellenizing school, also called the Philhellenic School, was an Armenian intellectual movement of the Early Middle Ages. It was characterized by significant attention to Greek texts and notable translation work from Greek to Armenian, often performing literal translations from Greek. It substantially influenced the Armenian language.
Theo Maarten van Lint is a Dutch scholar of Armenian studies. He has been the Calouste Gulbenkian Professor of Armenian Studies at the University of Oxford and a professorial fellow of Pembroke College since 2002. In the past, he has also served as secretary of the International Association for Armenian Studies.
Serapion of Nitria, Serapion of Thmuis, also spelled Sarapion, or Serapion the Scholastic was an early Christian monk and bishop of Thmuis in Lower Egypt, born in the 4th century. He is notable for fighting alongside Athanasius of Alexandria against Arianism.
The Armenian Alexander Romance, known in Armenian as The History of Alexander of Macedon, is an Armenian recension of the Greek Alexander Romance from the fifth-century. It incorporates many of its own elements, materials, and narratives not found in the original Greek version. While the text did not substantially influence Eastern legend, the Armenian romance is considered to be a highly important resource in reconstructing the text of the original Greek romance. The text continued to be copied until the eighteenth century, and the first Armenian and scholar to substantially study the text was Father Raphael Tʿreanc. He published an Armenian edition of it in 1842.