Library › Greek: Science & Medicine › On Whitening (Second Recension)
On Whitening (Second Recension) is a short alchemical text transmitted among the writings of Zosimus of Panopolis. It opens with the same sentence as the chapter On Whitening addressed to Dioscorus, whose attribution to Zosimus is doubtful, but continues differently. It states that whitening is the chief of all operations and is followed by yellowing, that is iosis, brought about by vinegar, and promises a chapter on the divine oil. It stresses that lead tests every substance and that vinegar provides the perfect test.
Its shared opening with the other text on whitening shows how short alchemical chapters were reworked and combined in the manuscripts. It adds a clear statement of the central roles of lead and vinegar in the practice of the art.
About this edition. The Greek text comes from the Eulogikon open corpus of public-domain editions (standard reference: CAAG II 249). Every word has been analyzed with odyCy, a neural language model for Ancient Greek — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from the Liddell–Scott–Jones Greek–English Lexicon (LSJ).