A. About the Collection of the Parts of the Body

257. About the first point [n.256], I say that collection of the parts will be done by the ministry of angels, and therefore in time. The antecedent is plain from the saying of the Savior, Matthew 24.31, “The Son of Man, with a trumpet and a loud voice, will send forth his angels, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from the tops of the heavens to the limits of them,” which is to say: whithersoever the parts of the matter of the body had been dispersed into the elements, whether into fire or earth (“from the tops of the heavens to the limits of them”), whether into any intermediate body (of water, or air, or imperfectly mixed),Scotus is proceeding on the assumption, common to the ancient and medieval world, that the elements of matter are the four of fire, air, water, earth (of which fire is naturally at the top and earth at the bottom and the other two in between), and that material bodies are mixtures more or less of these four. ⁸ from the four winds all the parts of matter will be collected again and reunited.

258. The consequence [sc. the collection will be in time, n.257] is plain from what was said in (Rep. IIA d.8 n.2), that an angel cannot move a body in an instant.