 While the receptacle has an obvious metaphysical role in the Timaeus, its primary role after its introduction is in the physical theory of the dialogue. The argument from 47e3 to 52d4 prepares the ground for both the spatial matrix in which to situate, and the material substratum from which to constitute, the universe that he will fashion after its eternal model. The fashioning, however, is the process of bringing order to what was, prior to and apart from the Craftsman’s intervention, a thoroughly disorderly state of affairs, and so the physical account begins with a description of that disorderly, “god-forsaken” (53b3–4) initial state.