Because I had cited from the Gospel: All power is given to me in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18), in order to show that this power, which He said was given to Him, was always intact in the nature of His divinity, I called to mind that apostolic saying which was spoken of the Son: When He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God the Father (1 Cor. 15:24) — since indeed the Father could at no time be without a kingdom: nor is the Father, who gave power to the Son, therefore greater, since the Son too is said to be about to deliver up the kingdom to the Father. For where one confers something as a favor, the giver is rightly reckoned greater than the receiver. But in the Godhead, from which what is ineffably given to the Son is not grace but nature, there remains the equality of the giver and the receiver.