29.—The Righteous Men Who Lived in the Time of the Law Were for All that Not Under the Law, But Under Grace. The Grace of the New Testament Hidden Under the Old.

Death indeed reigned from Adam until Moses,181    Rom. v. 14. because it was not possible even for the law given through Moses to overcome it: it was not given, in fact, as something able to give life;182    Gal. iii. 21. but as something that ought to show those that were dead and for whom grace was needed to give them life, that they were not only prostrated under the propagation and domination of sin, but also convicted by the additional guilt of breaking the law itself: not in order that any one might perish who in the mercy of God understood this even in that early age; but that, destined though he was to punishment, owing to the dominion of death, and manifested, too, as guilty through his own violation of the law, he might seek God’s help, and so where sin abounded, grace might much more abound,183    Rom. v. 20. even the grace which alone delivers from the body of this death.184    Rom. vii. 24, 25.

29. Quamvis ergo mors regnaverit ab Adam usque ad Moysen (Rom. V, 14), quia non eam potuit vincere nec lex data per Moysen; non enim data est quae posset vivificare (Galat. III, 21), sed quae mortuos, quibus vivificandis esset gratia necessaria, non solum peccati propagatione et dominatione prostratos, verum etiam ipsius legis addita praevaricatione convictos, deberet ostendere; non ut periret quisquis hoc in Dei misericordia etiam tunc intelligeret, sed ut per regnum mortis ad supplicium destinatus, etiam sibi ipsi per praevaricationem legis manifestatus, Dei quaereret adjutorium, ut ubi abundavit peccatum, superabundaret gratia (Rom. V, 20), quae sola liberat a corpore mortis hujus (Id. VII, 24, 25).