Cyprian of Carthage, On the Unity of the Church 5

We must hold and defend this unity firmly, especially we bishops who preside over the Church, so that we may also prove that the episcopate itself is one and indivisible. No one is to deceive the brotherhood with a lie, and no one is to corrupt the truth of the faith with a faithless violation. The episcopate is one, and each bishop holds it in its entirety. The Church is also one, spreading wider into a multitude through the increase of her fruitfulness. Just as the sun has many rays but only one light, and a tree has many branches but one trunk rooted in a tenacious root, and many streams flow from a single spring — though the multitude may seem scattered by the generosity of its overflowing abundance, unity is still preserved at the source. If you tear a ray from the body of the sun, unity does not allow a division of light; if you break a branch from a tree, the broken branch cannot sprout; if you cut a stream from its source, the severed stream dries up. So too the Church of the Lord, filled with light, extends her rays throughout the whole world; yet the light is one, diffused everywhere, and the unity of the body is not divided. She spreads her branches over the whole earth with an abundance of fruitfulness, and her flowing streams expand widely with generous bounty; yet there is one head, one origin, and one mother of fruitfulness, rich in offspring. We are born from her womb, nourished by her milk, and given life by her Spirit.