ABSTRACT
In the course of preparing a critical edition of the Paradeisos5 it seemed appropriate to present the question of authorship, and therefore its dating, separately and to put it forward for discussion. The manuscript tradition does not give any answers to the question.6 The approximately 35 manuscripts go back to one archetype7 and are divided into two branches; in one of them the work is attributed to John Geometres,8 while the second names Neilos as its
1 Easiest access in PG 106, pp. 867-89. 2 Cf. the articles o f F. Lauchert, BZ 4 (1895), pp. 125-7 and L. Voltz, BZ 5 (1896),
pp. 481-3. 3 ‘Studien zu John Geometres’, B Z 45 (1952) 277-319. 4 N. 3 above, pp. 295-97: ‘Im Paradeisos gibt es keine Spondaen im zweiten Hemiepes
des Pentameters und keine Diarese nach dem dritten FuB des Hexameters; beides im Gegensatz zu den anderen Werken des John Geometres’.
