Leo, a Pope, declares that "though there be among the people of God many priests and many shepherds, yet Peter rules all by immediate commission, whom Christ also rules by Sovereign power,"[24] the great Eastern, Saint Basil, assigned an adequate reason for this near a century before, when he viewed all pastoral authority in the Church as included in this grant to Peter, declaring that the spiritual "ruler is none else but one who represents the person of the Saviour, and offers up to God the salvation of those who obey him, and this we learn from Christ Himself _in that He appointed Peter to be the shepherd of His Church after_[25] _Himself_." But especially must we quote S. Cyprian, because to that equality of the Apostles as such, before referred to by us, by considering which without regard to the proportion of faith some have been led astray, he adds the full recognition of the Primacy, and urges its extreme importance. Thus quoting the promise and the fulfilment, "Thou art Peter, &c." and "Feed My sheep," he goes on, "Upon him being one He builds His Church; and _though_ He gives to all the Apostles an equal power, and says, "As the Father sent Me, I also send you, &c.," yet in order to manifest unity He has, by His own authority, so placed the source of the same unity as to begin from one. Certainly the other Apostles also were what Peter was, endued with an equal fellowship both of honour and power, but a commencement is made from unity, that the Church may be set before us as one."[26] That is, the Apostles were equal as to the powers bestowed in John xx. 23-5, but as to those given in Matt. xvi. 18-19, Luke xxii. 31-3, and John xxi. 15-18, "the Church was built upon Peter alone," and he was made the source and ever-living spring of ecclesiastical unity.