Autor: Voegelin, Eric

Buch: Israel and Revelation

Titel: Israel and Revelation

Stichwort: Nabel der Welt, omphalos, Verbindung zw. Den Welten; Babylon: Tor der Götter, Jakob: Beth-el

Kurzinhalt: Nabel in Griechenland, Babylon, Israel, Rom, China; point at which the stream of being flows from the cosmos into the empire, Roman milestone

Textausschnitt: Such unity, comprehending the separate existences as parts, necessitates the creation of a symbol that will express the point of physical connection between the two separate parts, the point at which the stream of being flows from the cosmos into the empire. A style of symbolization, once a nucleus is formed and accepted, by its inner logic requires the creation of further symbols. The symbol just indicated as a requirement wherever political order is symbolized cosmologically may be called by the Greek name omphalos, meaning the navel of the world, at which transcendent forces of being flow into social order.
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Finally, in order to stress the typical appearance of the omphalos in cosmological civilizations, there should be recalled the Chinese symbol of a chung kuo, of a central domain and seat of the king. The chung kuo was surrounded by the feudal states of lesser dignity, which in their turn were surrounded by the barbarian tribes.
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In Babylonian civilization the symbol occurred, as we have seen, in the preamble to the Code of Hammurabi. There Babylon became surpassing in the world when it was established "in the midst of the world" as an everlasting kingdom; and the name Bab-ilani meant indeed Gate of the Gods.