The core issue lies in the translation of koinonia and its connection to modern concepts of society and community. The question arises: How should we translate koinonia? As modern translators often do, should it be translated as "society" or "community"?

The distinction between the Latin terms communitas and societas—the roots of the modern words "community" and "society"—is crucial. This distinction is highlighted by scholars like Friedrich Tönnies, who noted that communitas (community) is seen as organic and typically non-voluntary, whereas societas (society) is grounded in rational, voluntary, and contractual relationships. Max Weber emphasizes that society is based on rational behavior, creating interlocking networks of voluntary actors. At the same time, community is bound by non-voluntary, organic ties—such as kinship, family, and village life. Societas, in contrast, can interconnect various villages or larger structures that community cannot encompass.

The challenge with translating koinonia from Greek lies in its broader range of meanings. Koinonia can refer to intimate relationships—such as those between husband and wife, parent and child, or between friends—but it also extends to larger groupings, such as a race (genos). In this sense, koinonia encompasses both the intimate relationships within a household (oikos), which Aristotle identifies as including husband-wife, parent-child, and sibling relationships and the broader peer friendships of equals.

Crucially, koinonia also refers to the political community, the polis, which Aristotle views as the highest form of association where human beings can fulfill their nature and achieve eudaimonia(happiness or fulfillment). At this level—within the polis—Aristotle argues that human flourishing is optimized, in what we might describe, borrowing from economic theory, as a kind of "Pareto optimality" where the fulfillment of human potential is maximized.

In contrast, Aristotle suggests that larger associations—such as nations or tribes—do not provide the optimal conditions for human eudaimonia. Only within the polis, or the Roman civitas, can human beings fully realize their potential and achieve happiness. This presents a fundamental dilemma when translating koinonia and comparing it with modern concepts of society and community.

This difficulty is compounded when scholars of Aristotle and ancient Greek political thought attempt to link these ancient concepts with modern social constructs. Tönnies does not fully address this issue, and even Fustel de Coulanges, in his famous work The Ancient City, misrepresents the matter in some respects. Coulanges, following the ideas of Benjamin Constant, argues that the ancient world is fundamentally different from the modern world, emphasizing the role of religion and the nomos (law) in shaping the ancient city. In doing so, he engages in a form of historicism that scholars like Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin criticize.

Curiously, despite Strauss's critique of historicism, he frequently recommended Coulanges’s The Ancient City to his students, which presents a perplexing issue. Nonetheless, this is the essence of the challenge we face in understanding and translating koinonia to both ancient and modern political thought.