The seamless coat makes fragmentation a crucifixion image
They have parted His garments among them, and for His vesture they have cast lots; though the coat was without seam woven from the top throughout.
The final sentence combines the soldiers' division of Christ's clothes with John's description of the seamless tunic. In the King James Version, John 19:23 supplies the coat's construction, while John 19:24 quotes the scripture fulfilled by the division and casting of lots. Behind that quotation stands Psalm 22:18; Matthew 27:35 in the KJV also uses 'garments' and 'vesture.' Chesterton adapts the first-person scriptural wording into third-person reference to Christ and joins it to the description in John. It is therefore a biblical composite rather than one continuous verbatim verse.
The adversative 'though' gives the allusion its force. John distinguishes the divided outer garments from the tunic which the soldiers decide not to tear. Chesterton turns that contrast into an accusation against interpreters: they divide Christ's moral character into competing philosophical properties although it possesses an underlying unity. The image closes the chapter's argument about isolated virtues with the figure of an undivided person.
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