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Ecclesiae Unitate and chooses two short chapters for his treatise ivth and the vth. From a very minute analysis, he deduces the following conclusion: If Christ first established the Church on Peter alone (cf. Mt. xvi, 18 et s.), this was solely, in the opinion of Cyprian, in order to render tangible and as it were visible by means of that unity among its members, the moral unity which was to reign in His Church. But such a priority in point of time did not at all confer on Peter any pre-eminence in authority or honour: it had a purely symbolical bearing, and the other Apostles continued to be the equals of Peter, par£ consortia praediti et honoris et patcstatis. St Cyprian too considered the Episcopate as the heir of the Apostolic College, as forming one whole, in which each Bishop, jointly and severally, held a portion of the whole (ctdus a singulis 'in solidum pats tenetur), in full equality with his colleagues.