Abstract

The article investigates the place, role, and importance of the idea of three-dimensional extension in the context of Philoponu’s metaphysics of matter. We can clearly discern two different phases in its development: (1) in which the three-dimensionality is understood as an inseparable accident of Aristotelian prime matter, and (2) in which the three-dimensionality itself becomes the prime matter and the ultimate subject of all natural entities. The paper argues that this ontological »cut« of Philoponus, despite unambiguous philosophical motives, was indirectly inspired by the theological debate on the creation ex nihilo.