  Somewhat surprising is that these words are generally supposed to have been uttered by a Christian. Although it is most certainly wrong to reckon with a clear-cut dichotomy between the intellectual commitments and sentiments of ‘Christians’ and ‘pagans’ in late antiquity, it is striking that David’s text gives us no indication that the author was indeed a Christian. On the contrary, there are many features that belong to the old world of pagan polytheism: the world is eternal, the soul immortal, the celestial bodies divine, and we hear of irrational avenging spirits and long-living nymphs. Moreover, ‘David’ seems to proselytize among his students, trying to turn their minds and souls towards pagan Greek philosophy understood as a commitment to a certain way of life. For example, he makes heavy weather of the Platonic idea that philosophy is an assimilation to god and claims at one point that “the complete philosopher is similar to god because he is characterized by the same things as god, in particular universal knowledge” (p. 17, 1ff).  He finishes his lectures with a resounding exhortation that philosophy “adorns human souls and transfers the soul from the dim corporeality of this life to what is divine and immaterial”, citing a line from Homer in support (p. 79, 2–5).