A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

of Nerken, a learned Armenian philosopher and a commentator on Plato and Aristotle, was a relation of the Armenian historian, Moses of Chorene, and lived at the end of the fifth and the beginning of the sixth century after Christ. He studied at Athens under Syrianus, the preceptor of Proclus, and was one of those later philosophers who made it their chief aim to harmonize the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. Of the life and writings of David much important information is given by C. Fr. Neumann, Mémoire sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de David, Paris, 1829; comp. Berlin. Jahrb. für wissensch. Kritik. 1829, p. 797, &c. David wrote several philosophical works in the Armenian and Greek languages, and translated some of the writings of Aristotle into the Armenian. His commentaries on the Categories of Aristotle and likewise on the Isagoge of Porphyry, which are still extant, are not without some merit, and are principally of importance for the information which they contain respecting the history of literature. (Stahr, Aristotelia, vol. i. pp. 206, 207, ii. pp. 63, 68, 69, 197.) Whether he was alive when the philosophers were exiled from Athens by the emperor Justinian, and returned into Asia in consequence of their expulsion, is uncertain. (Fabric. Bibl. Gr. iii. pp. 209, 485, v. p. 738.) His commentaries were translated into Arabic and Hebrew, and manuscripts of such translations are still extant. (Buhle's Aristot. vol. i. p. 298; Neumann in the Nouveau Journal Asiatique, vol. i.) There is another commentator on Aristotle, of the same name, but a different person, namely, David the Jew. (Jourdain, Recherches sur l'Age et l'Origine des Traductions Latines d'Arist. Paris, 1819, pp. 196, 197.)

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