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