communion

is a transliterated form of the Greek word , which refers to concepts such as fellowship, joint participation, partnership, the share which one has in anything, a gift jointly contributed, a collection, a contribution. In the Politics of Aristotle it is used to mean a community of any size from a single family to a polis. As a polis, it is the Greek for republic or commonwealth. In later Christianity it identifies the idealized state of fellowship and unity that should exist within the Christian church, the Body of Christ. This usage may have been borrowed from the early Epicureans—as it is used by Epicurus' Principal Doctrines 37–38.