But nature is nevertheless "begotten out of holy chaos." How do "chaos" and "nomos" ("law") go together? "Chaos" signifies for us lawlessness and confusion. Hölderlin himself says: "And holy wilderness, preparing much, has grown roots"; he speaks of the "holy wildernesses", also of the "clumsy wilderness", and of the "primeval confusion". Nevertheless, χάος signifies first of all the yawning, gaping chasm, the open that first opens itself, wherein everything is engulfed. The chasm affords no support for anything distinct and grounded. And therefore, for all experience, which only knows what is mediated, chaos seems to be without differentiation and thus mere confusion. The "chaotic" in this sense, however, is only the inessential aspect of what "chaos" means. Thought in terms of nature φύσις chaos remains that gaping out of which the open opens itself, so that it may grant its bounded presence to all differentiations. Hölderlin therefore calls "Chaos" and "confusion" "holy." Chaos is the holy itself. Nothing that is real precedes this opening, but rather always only enters into it. All that appears is already surpassed each time by it. Nature is, "as once," prior to and above everything. She is the former—and that in a double sense. She is the oldest of every former thing, and always the youngest of subsequent things. By awakening, nature's coming, as what is most futural, comes out of the oldest of what has been, which never ages because it is each time the youngest.

Pp. 84-5

¶ 5:28 AM