Original freedom does not produce a single politics of slavery
For the orthodox there can always be a revolution; for a revolution is a restoration.
Augustine supplies both a strong precedent and an important qualification. In The City of God XIX.15, he reads Genesis 1:26 as authorizing human dominion over animals rather than other humans. Slavery belongs to the consequences of sin, not to humanity as originally created. That distinction supports Chesterton's refusal to infer moral legitimacy from the institution's duration.
But Augustine also regards servitude as a penal condition within divine judgment and urges slaves to serve their masters faithfully when they cannot obtain freedom. In XIX.16 he envisages Christian masters retaining authority over their households. The same contrast between original freedom and fallen history could thus support accommodation to existing slavery as well as criticism of it. Chesterton makes the original condition a standing warrant for reform; that political inference is not an uncontested consequence of the theological premise. This comparison establishes a difference in reasoning, not a claim that Chesterton was answering Augustine. The work appeared in installments from 413 and was completed in 426; the inspected English witness is Marcus Dods's translation in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, volume 2 (1887), revised for New Advent. Augustine, XIX.15–16.
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