The Scarlet Thread and the Reversal in Christ's Genealogy
Old Testament: Genesis 38:27-30
And when she was ready to be brought to bed, there appeared twins in her womb: and in the very delivery of the infants, one put forth a hand, whereon the midwife tied a scarlet thread, saying: This shall come forth the first. But he drawing back his hand, the other came forth: and the woman said: Why is the partition divided for thee? and therefore called his name Phares. Afterwards his brother came out, on whose hand was the scarlet thread: and she called him Zara.
New Testament: Matthew 1:3
And Judas begot Phares and Zara of Thamar. And Phares begot Esron. And Esron begot Aram.
The connection
The midwife's thread names an expectation the birth itself overturns, the marked hand withdraws, and the unmarked child breaks through ahead of it. Matthew doesn't smooth this over; he lists both twins by name in Christ's genealogy (1:3), letting the reader who knows Genesis 38 see exactly which of the two Christ's own line runs through: not the one marked first, but the one who broke the order everyone expected.
Moral sense
Pseudo-Chrysostom, in Aquinas's Catena Aurea on Matthew 1:3, reads the two names as two peoples: "By Zarah is denoted the people of the Jews, which first appeared in the light of faith... and was therefore marked with the scarlet thread of the circumciser... but the Law was set before their face as it had been a wall or hedge." The mark of the covenant came first; being marked first is not the same as arriving first.
Anagogical sense
"Thus the Jews were hindered by the Law, but in the times of Christ's coming the hedge of the Law was broken down... and thus it fell out that the Gentiles, who were signified by Phares... first entered into the faith" (Pseudo-Chrysostom), once Christ broke down "the middle wall of partition" (Ephesians 2:14). What Genesis narrates as a strange detail in a birth, the Church reads as the whole shape of election: not cancelled, only reordered.
The Fathers
Pseudo-Chrysostom (Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum), as preserved in Aquinas's Catena Aurea on Matthew 1:3: "By Zarah is denoted the people of the Jews... marked with the scarlet thread of the circumciser... the Gentiles, who were signified by Phares... first entered into the faith."
Warrant
The fullest reading is preserved only under the disputed name "Pseudo-Chrysostom" (Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum), and reaches us through St Thomas Aquinas's Catena Aurea on Matthew 1:3, a later compiler. Authorship cannot be securely attributed to a named Father. Both twins are named in both places. Phares stands at Genesis 38:29 in the Septuagint and Zara at 38:30, and Matthew 1:3 carries both into the genealogy, so the reversal the entry turns on is recorded under the same two names in both Testaments. St John Chrysostom, Homily 3 on Matthew, asks why the Evangelist names Zara at all when Christ's genealogy runs through Phares, retells the midwife's scarlet thread and the hand drawn back, and gives as the reason what careful interpreters say, that these children are a type of the two nations; for him Zara's withdrawn hand is the Church's way of life first shown in Abraham and Phares the people of the Law, the reverse of Pseudo-Chrysostom's assignment, and St Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV.25.2, likewise reads the twins as the two covenants and the scarlet token on Zara as the Passion of the Just One, perfected in the Son of God.
The verses
Genesis 38:27 · Genesis 38:28 · Genesis 38:29 · Genesis 38:30 · Matthew 1:3
