ἀναλογία

From the study of Romans 12:6

Range of meaning

Proportion, ratio, right correspondence between things. A technical term in Greek mathematics and philosophy. Plato (Timaeus 31c–32a) calls proportion the finest bond holding the cosmos together. Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics 5.3) defines fair distribution as giving to each "according to proportion" (kat' analogian). The phrase kata analogian means "proportionately" or "in due measure".

Against the English

KJV, WEB, ESV and BSB have "proportion", which is accurate. NIV's "in accordance with your faith" keeps the idea of fit but loses the measuring image. English readers who know the theological phrase "analogy of faith" may hear "analogy" in the sense of comparison or illustration. That is not what the Greek means.

How it drifted

The Latin-speaking church rendered the phrase secundum rationem fidei (Vulgate). Later theologians borrowed the Greek as analogia fidei, the "analogy of faith". It became a rule of interpretation, especially from the Reformation on: read unclear passages in harmony with clear ones and with the whole body of Christian teaching. That rule may be sound in itself, but it is a later use of the phrase, and it settles in advance a question the Greek leaves open.

Used elsewhere in the period

Only here in the New Testament. Wisdom of Solomon 13:5 uses the adverb (analogōs): from the greatness and beauty of created things their Maker is "correspondingly" perceived. Philo and the philosophers use it often in the mathematical and ethical sense of fitting ratio.