Commentaria in Genesim
AND THE WOMAN SAID,—the midwife, taking it ill that she was deceived, and fearing also lest this violent struggle and bursting forth might harm the mother or the twins, said:
WHY IS THE PARTITION DIVIDED FOR THEE?—The Hebrew is, “why hast thou broken a breach upon thee,” or “a partition,” that is, why hast thou broken the membrane in which thou wast wrapped, to come forth before thy brother? that is, why, having burst the afterbirth, hast thou come forth first and got before thy brother (1)?
For twins have the same afterbirth. Hear Fernelius, book 7 of Physiology, chap. 11: “Twins who are of one sex are wrapped in the same afterbirth, and are separated only by a simple membrane (which they call the amnion, that is, the lamb-membrane); each, however, has his own umbilical cord and his own veins and arteries; but those who are of different sexes have received different afterbirths too, and these altogether separate.” The same teaches Roderic a Castro, book 3, On the Nature of Women, chap. 12, and our physicians profess that they have found the same by experience.
Note: These are the words of the midwife, taking it ill, as I said, that the exit from the womb and the birthright had been snatched from Zara by Phares. Note: for partition, the Hebrew is Phares, that is, a breach, also a wall or hedge (as the Septuagint render) which is broken; this wall is the membrane with which the infant is as it were walled about and wrapped in the mother’s womb, and which being broken through he comes out. This membrane is called the secundines, because they follow the infant as it is born, and are sent forth from the womb. Hence the infant is called Phares, that is, division or divider, or breaker, because he first broke and divided the secundines, as a wall standing in his way, that he might be born first.
has looked upon the little membrane of the secundines, took the name of division: whence also the Pharisees, who had as it were separated themselves from the people as just, were called Pharisees, that is, divided.” Hence also that which was written to Baltassar, Daniel v, 28: “Mane, Thecel, thy kingdom is seen,” and given to the Persians and Medes. So St. Jerome.
Note second, Phares was held to be the firstborn of Juda, and had the rights of primogeniture; whence the line of Juda is woven through Phares: and David and all the kings, and Christ himself, promised to Juda, Gen. xlix, 10, were descended from him through Phares.
You will say: Sela, the lawful son of Juda, was older than Phares, for he was begotten immediately after Her and Onan; therefore, they being dead, the right of primogeniture devolved on him, especially since Sela left sons, who are named in 1 Paral. iv, 24. I answer that Her was the firstborn of Juda; and he being dead, Onan, and then Sela, ought to have taken his widow Thamar, and raised up seed from her to Her their brother, and reckoned the firstborn by his name, namely by calling him the son of Her, as I said verse 9. But because Sela did not do this, but Juda did, by begetting Phares of Thamar, hence Phares is reckoned the firstborn, as being the son of Thamar, the wife of Her the firstborn, and consequently succeeding into the place of Her the firstborn, by the usage and law of that age. For this cause the generation and birth of Phares before Zara is carefully narrated here, because if Zara had been born before Phares he would have been the firstborn of Juda: hence he strove in the womb with Phares, that he might be born first. Here again we see the reason why Thamar so ardently sought offspring from Sela, and, he being denied, from Juda; namely because she desired that there be born of her the firstborn, heir and prince of the most noble family of Juda. For although the law of raising up seed to a dead brother only named and bound brothers, not fathers, because intercourse of a daughter-in-law with a father, namely a father-in-law, was forbidden: yet if a father denied his son to a childless and widowed daughter-in-law, owed to her by the law, and she therefore claimed her right, though by crime, from the father, namely the father-in-law, as Thamar did here, then the offspring first born of her was reckoned firstborn, because by fiction and interpretation of law the father was held to have done by himself, and to have rendered to the daughter-in-law the right owed her as to his dead firstborn, what he ought to have done and rendered through the surviving son. For since a rule of Law says: “What one does through another, he is held to do himself”; much more what he is bound to do through another, if he does it himself, is to be considered to have done in fact. Some add that the line of Sela seems to have failed in his posterity, for no mention of it is made elsewhere: but the line of Phares lasted to Christ. The line of Sela having died out, therefore, all the right of primogeniture devolved on the line of Phares, as the nearest. But this is uncertain, and does not satisfy. For already from the beginning, when the line of Sela still stood, Aminadab, of the line of Phares (for Phares begot Esron, he begot Aran, he Aminadab), and his son Naasson, were princes in the tribe of Juda, as being its firstborn, as is plain Num. i, 7.
30. ZARA.—Zara in Hebrew is the same as rising, because this son, since he had first put forth his hand, ought naturally to rise and be born first. He was called, says St. Jerome, Zara, that is, rising, either because he first appeared, or because very many just men were born of him, as is plain 1 Paral. chap. ii and following.
Allegorically, Zara, who first put forth his hand, is the Jew, who first received the law, but drew back the hand bound with the scarlet thread, because he turned his conscience, defiled with the blood of Christ, away from God and salvation: whence Phares was preferred before him, that is, the Gentile people, who came first to the light of faith, and was born to God, and broke the partition of enmity between God and men, by the blood of Christ. So Rupert and Cyril. On the contrary, however, St. Chrysostom, Irenaeus and Theodoret take Zara for the Gentile Christians, Phares for the Jews.
Morally, see here what the origin of the most noble families is, and what nobility is. For behold, from this incest of Juda with Thamar were born David, Solomon and all the kings of Juda, and Christ the Lord himself: for he descends from Juda through Phares and Thamar. For all the lawful sons of Juda had either no posterity, as Her and Onan, or few and plebeian, as Sela, as is plain 1 Paral. iv, 21. In like manner there is no king or prince who, if he traces his ancestors back two thousand years, will not find among them many bastards, many rustics or cobblers, or men even meaner; nay, very many from the vilest stock were soon raised to the kingdom. So Saul from the asses, David from the sheep came to the kingdom. Jephte from a robber was made prince, Arsaces from a robber was made king of the Parthians, Gyges from a shepherd was made king of the Lydians. Darius son of Hystaspes was Cyrus’s quiver-bearer. Valentinian the Emperor had a father who twisted ropes. Tamberlane from a herdsman was made king of the Tartars. Agathocles, tyrant of the Syracusans, had a potter for a father. Tullus Hostilius from a shepherd was made king of the Romans. Aurelian and Diocletian were born of humble stock. Maximinus was a shepherd. Maximus Pupienus had a blacksmith for a father. Justin I the Emperor was, first, a swineherd; second, a herdsman; third, a carpenter; fourth, a soldier, thence Emperor. Mahomet, the author of Mahometanism and the Alcoran, was a camel-driver. Othoman, the first prince of the Turks, was born of peasant parents, and his posterity are still the Emperors of the Turks. The Sultans of Egypt, by the institution of the nation and kingdom, had first to be slaves before they rose to that honour. Finally, all nobility had an ignoble beginning: and those who glory in the nobility of their ancestors glory not in their own virtue but in another’s. And this therefore is vanity. Rightly the Poet:
Though ancient waxen images adorn your halls on every side, virtue alone is nobility, and the only kind.
For race, and forefathers, and what we ourselves have not made, I scarcely call these ours.
And deservedly Iphicrates, to one who reproached him with ignoble birth: “My lineage,” he said, “begins with me, yours ends in you.” So Plutarch in the Apophthegms. Cicero answered his rivals the same: “I,” he says, “have outshone my ancestors in virtue.”