05_Biblica_Aletti_Layout 1 01/04/14 12:04 Pagina 88 James 2,14-26: The Arrangement and Its Meaning Most commentators note the quality of the Greek in the Letter of James. Some even go so far as to maintain that its Greek is the best in the New Testament. So one cannot fail to ask if the devel- opment of its thought follows a Greek pattern as well or if its rhet- oric, as has been asserted, is Semitic 1. The twofold intention of this essay is to demonstrate that the passage on faith and works in Jas 2:14-26 follows a pattern that was taught in Greek schools and described in the progymnasmata of ancient rhetors, namely, the chreia (crei,a) and to elucidate the pertinence of this pattern. I. A Brief status quaestionis on the Arrangement Commentators generally take little interest in the arrangement of Jas 2:14-26 because they are more concerned with comparing this passage with those from Galatians and Romans in which it is a question of justification by faith alone. Exegetes of the past 50 years think that the passage comprises two or three sub-units: (1) vv. 14-17 and 18-26 or (2) vv. 14-17, 18-20 and 21-26. These readings rely upon literary criteria, like that of M. Dibelius, repeated by H. Greeven, 2 for whom a unit in the form of a diatribe begins in v. 18. Three indicators facilitate the recognition of a diatribe in v. 18ff.: the apostrophe to a fictitious interlocutor in the singular (“you who, etc.”), the prosopopoeia (an imaginary character is speaking) and the denigration (cf. “you fool- ish man” in v. 20). Those for whom vv. 18-26 form a single unit invoke the fact that vv. 21-25 are proofs and thus cannot be sepa- rated from the preceding verses, in particular v. 18, which have the 1 T. KOT, La lettre de Jacques. La foi, chemin de vie (Rhétorique sémitique 2; Paris 2006) 103-115. 2 M. DIBELIUS – H. GREEVEN, James. A Commentary on the Epistle of James (Hermeneia; Philadelphia, PA 1976) 149. BIBLICA 95.1 (2014) 88-101