after their want of success in discovering Him whom they had supposed to have been born,
they had been ashamed to return to him; and that in this way the king, having his fears al-
layed, had given up the idea of asking after and persecuting the child. Consequently, when
they had gone with Him to Jerusalem after the purification of His mother, and when those
things had been performed in the temple which are recounted by Luke,782 inasmuch as the
words which were spoken by Simeon and Anna in their prophesyings regarding Him, when
publicity began to be given to them by the persons who had heard them, were like to call
back the king’s mind then to its original design, Joseph obeyed the warning conveyed to
him in the dream, and fled with the child and His mother into Egypt. Afterwards, when the
things which had been done and said in the temple were made quite public, Herod perceived
that he had been mocked; and then, in his desire to get at the death of Christ, he slew the
multitude of children, as Matthew records.783
782 Luke ii. 22–39.
783 Matt. ii. 3–16.
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An Examination of the Question as to How It Was Possible for Them to Go…