# The beginning as a court of appeal against custom

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH07.P016](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH07.P016/#char=952,1064): "Man may have had concubines as long as cows have had horns: still they are not a part of him if they are sinful."

The argumentative pattern closely resembles Jesus' answer about divorce in Matthew 19:3–9. His interlocutors appeal to Mosaic permission; Jesus appeals behind that permission to creation, joining the creation of male and female to the two becoming one flesh. The King James Version renders his distinction: ‘but from the beginning it was not so’ (19:8). Antiquity and even legal permission therefore do not settle what human union ought to be. Chesterton extends that pattern from divorce to concubinage and oppression: a practice can be historically pervasive without belonging to humanity's original good. This is a textual parallel, not proof that Matthew was his immediate source. [Matthew 19:3–9, KJV](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19%3A3-9&version=KJV).

The claim that the ideal precedes the world's foundations also uses biblical diction. Ephesians 1:4 places election to holiness ‘before the foundation of the world’; John 17:24 uses the same phrase of the Father's love for Christ. Neither verse describes Eden as existing before creation. Chesterton combines the biblical language of a purpose before creation with the narrative of an original human condition; his sentence is a theological synthesis rather than a quotation of one verse. The inspected Bible is Project Gutenberg's electronic KJV witness; the English translation was first published in 1611. [Ephesians 1:4; John 17:24](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10).

## Sources

- [Matthew 19:3–9, King James Version](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19%3A3-9&version=KJV), 19:4–8; KJV first published 1611
- [The King James Version of the Bible](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10), Ephesians 1:4; John 17:24; electronic text updated October 29, 2024

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