  The third difficulty concerns the Greek manuscript tradition. All of our older manuscripts (from the 11th century onwards) are either anonymous or attribute their contents to (1) Elias, or to (2) the saint David of Thessaloniki (who died around 530), or (3) to the 10th century Byzantine scholar Nicetas of Paphlagonia who called himself by the monastic name ‘David’. Only the 16th century manuscripts and one from the 14th century name ‘David’ at all as author, and it seems imprudent to put too much, if any, weight on this attribution. It is quite possible that the texts we have now under the name of David first circulated as anonymous lecture notes and were only later attributed to an author with a good Christian name so as to enhance its importance and authority among Christian readers.