In Ezek. v. 5 we read, "I have set Jerusalem in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her.8 On the literal interpretation of these words it was asserted that Jerusalem was the very centre of the world, or, as Jerome quaintly called it, "the navel of the earth. In the Talmud we find a beautiful metaphor in illustration of this view. It is in the last six lines of the ninth chapter of Derech Eretz Zuta, which read thus: " Issi ben Yochanan, in the name of Shemuel Hakaton, says, (The world is like the eyeball of man; the white is the ocean which surrounds the world, the black is the world itself, the pupil is Jerusalem, and the image in the pupil is the Temple.
May it be built in our own days, and in the days of all Israel! Amen!) • The memory of this conceit is kept alive to this day among the Greek Christians, who still show the sacred stone in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. This notion is not confined to Jewry. Classic readers will at once call to mind the appellation Omphalos or navel applied to the temple at Delphi (Pindar, Pyth., iv. 131, vi. 3; Eurip. Ion., 461; -<Esch. Chceph., 1034; Eum. 40, 167; Strabo, etc.).