David the Invincible
Armenian philosopher/5th century
David the Invincible or David the Philosopher was a Neoplatonic philosopher of the 6th century.
Biography
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" (Old Armenian: Անյաղթ, romanized: Anyałt’) in the Armenian tradition, which considers David himself an Armenian. Historian Tara Andrews states that his ethnicity is uncertain.
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, but this is not substantiated in contemporary sources and may be due to conflation with another person.
He was active in Alexandria in Byzantine Egypt, known as an expert in Aristotle's Physics.
He supposedly received the byname "invincible" for his exceptional oratory and argumentative skills. 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.
Of the number of works attributed to him, many are pseudepigraphic or doubtful.
The public source identifies “David the Invincible” as armenian philosopher/5th century. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around David, Invincible and Armenian.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1173486. VIAF identifies the subject as 14779150. The Library of Congress control number is n80015904. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “David the Invincible” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.