‚David Armenius philosophus‘

At the centre of the philosophical tradition of Armenia is a thinker who in the Western tradition carries the Latin names ‘David Armenius philosophus’ or ‘David invincibilis’. Today, international philosophical-historical research is increasingly concerned with the enigmatic corpus of the works that have been handed down under the name of David. The historical-critical exploration of early Armenian philosophy and its specific achievements, as well as its intense relationship to late antique Byzantine thought, were, however, initiated by important scholars of Western Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. Before this time, there were few reliable references to ‘David’ in Western European research literature. It was the orientalist Carl Friedrich Neumann (1798–1870) who brought about the turnaround. He studied in Heidelberg with Creuzer and Hegel, learned the Armenian language from the Mechitarists in Venice, and found inspiration in Paris. Then he examined the available Armenian and Greek sources of the Corpus Davidis and collected his findings in a monograph in 1829. Neumann’s deeply philosophical mind is clearly revealed in this treatise, entitled Mémoire sur la vie et les ouvrages de David. With great certitude, he traced down the pieces of information from David’s writings, as well as from the related ancient Armenian sources, which had great relevance for further research. These findings included communications on the biography of David and his own works, as well as on Aristotle, late antique Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism. Almost inevitably, Neumann also fell victim to errors, which, however, does not diminish his importance as a pioneer of research into late antique Armenian philosophy. Neumann put David on the map for Western scholars, thus prompting a wider interest in the hitherto isolated Armenian philosophical thought for the first time.