Double meaning

On page 164, Hardy states that Tess "is an unimpeachable Christian, I am sure; perhaps of the very tribe, genus, and species you desire to propagate." Angel used this reference to demonstrate the legitimacy of Tess's Christian faith. Genus and species is part of the binomial nomenclature developed by Linaeus in his taxonomy system. This system was based on the physical traits of the organisms he was classifying. I thought there may have been a pun here because this system of classifying organisms is different than the phylogeny system developed by Carl Woese which is based on molecular and rRNA evidence for classifying organisms. I thought that there may have been a pun because Tess only seems to be a "good" christian at first glance. However if you dig deeper into her past you can see that it is not the case, at least in the eyes of the conservative christians prevalent at the time .