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establish primary polarities within the Thomasine view of the world: good plant/bad plant, good person/bad person, good seed/bad seed, one/two. The term "universal" is used here in the sense of reasoning that purports to apply to every person everywhere. In other words, these logia do not contain "you" or some other formulation that directs the reasoning toward a limited group of people. Universal enthymemes in the Gospel of Thomas are part of the enthymemic network of wisdom that Thomas shares with Q and synoptic material. These enthymemes do not contain startling information or inverted modes of reasoning. Rather, they contain negative formulations that use conventional Mediterranean wisdom forcefully toward their rhetorical goals. Gospel of Thomas 45:1-4 Gospel of Thomas 45:1-4 argues that grapes and figs are analogous to good people, and thorn trees and thistles are analogous to bad people. Any region in the world with viticulture as part of its food source is ready for the reasoning in this logion. Bad people (like thorn trees and thistles) do not produce nourishing fruit but evil actions and speech; good people (like grapes and figs) produce nourishing actions and speech. The logion in Thomas is as follows: GThom 45 1Jesus said, "Grapes are not harvested from thorn trees, nor are figs gathered from thistles, for they yield no fruit. 2A good person brings forth good from the storehouse; 3a bad person brings forth evil things from the corrupt storehouse in the heart, and says evil things. 4For from the abundance of the heart this person brings forth evil things." The reasoning in this logion works inductively from the case that thorn trees and thistles yield no fruit (but grapes and figs do), and this inductive reasoning is applied by analogy to good and bad people. An inductive display of the reasoning in the logion looks as follows: Explanation (Case/Ground/Minor Premise): Grapes are not harvested from thorn trees, nor are figs gathered from thistles, for they yield no fruit. Analogy (Result/Claim): A good person brings forth good from the storehouse; a bad person brings forth evil things from the corrupt storehouse in the heart, and says evil things. For from the abundance of the heart the evil person brings forth evil things. [Major Premise (Rule/Warrant): (Unexpressed)] Protrepsis/Apotrepsis (Implication): (Unexpressed)] The reasoning from analogy in this logion is inductive (Hurley 1985: 28), since it requires reasoning beyond viticulture to human culture in a manner that is probable but not certain. Since nourishing fruit is gathered from plants like grapevines and fig trees, rather than thorns and thistles which yield no fruit, by analogy (induction) good people are like grapevines and fig trees and bad people are like thorn trees and thistles. Bad people produce evil rather than good things from the abundance of their hearts, much like thorn trees and thistles produce thorns and thistles rather than fruit. The Thomas logion does not |