Luke 2:39 - Exposition

And when they had performed all things according to the Law of the Lord. Another note, which tells us of the rigid obedience which Mary and Joseph paid to the Law of Israel, under which they lived. Marcion, the famous Gnostic heretic (second century), who adopted this Gospel of St. Luke, to the exclusion of the other three, as the authoritative Gospel for his sect, omitted, however, all these passages of St. Luke's narrative in which the old Mosaic Law was spoken of with reverence. They returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth . To complete the story of our Lord's early life, we must insert from St. Matthew, before this return to Nazareth, the visit of the Magi, and the flight to and return from Egypt. It is probable—even if the Gospel of St. Matthew, as we have it, was not then written—that these details, the visit of the Magi and the flight into Egypt, were facts already well known to those whom this Gospel was especially designed to instruct.