Rare hand-painted icon of the Holy Family - Flight into Egypt. Apart from the angelic gospel of the shepherds of Bethlehem, the Nativity of Christ was no less wonderfully foretold in the Far East - to the pagan magicians. These wise men were honored to worship before many Jews the Lord who was born, to serve Him with their gifts, and even to become heralds of Him in the land of all Jerusalem and to the Jewish high priests themselves. After the Magi left Bethlehem, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, ordering him, together with the newborn Infant Jesus Christ and His Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, to flee to Egypt and remain there until he was ordered to return. hence, for Herod would seek the Infant to destroy Him. When he got up, Joseph took the Baby and His Mother at night and left for Egypt. But first, before leaving, he fulfilled in the temple of Solomon all that was determined by the law of the Lord, because the days of purification of the Immaculate and Immaculate Mother of God have already come, and in this temple our Lord was met by the elder Simeon and Anna the prophetess. Then, fulfilling all that was prescribed by law, Joseph went to Nazareth, to his home. For St. Luke says: "And when they had finished all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, into their own city of Nazareth." It is clear from this that they did not go immediately from Bethlehem to Egypt, but first went to the temple of the Lord, then to Nazareth, and finally to Egypt. On his return, Joseph heard that this evil ruler was reigning, though without a royal title, and he was afraid to go to Judea; and after receiving a revelation in a dream from the same angel who had appeared to him before, he went beyond Galilee into the possession of Herod Antipas, brother of Archelaus, because Herod ruled the people with greater meekness than his brother; and Joseph dwelt in the city of Nazareth, in his own house, where they dwelt before, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets concerning Christ the Lord, that he should be called a Nazarene.