Various Escapes

Adorato autem Domino, magi, et omni devotione completa, secundum admonitionem somnii non eodem quo venerant itinere revertuntur. Oportebat enim ut jam in Christum credentes non per antiquae conversationis semitas ambularent, sed novam ingressi viam a relictis erroribus abstinerent. Tum ut etiam Herodis vacuarentur insidiae, qui in puerum Jesum impietatem doli per simulationem disponebat officii. Unde quia spes istius erat soluta commenti, in majorem furorem iracundia regis ardescit. Nam recolens tempus quod indicaverant magi, in omnes Bethleem pueros rabiem crudelitatis effundit, et caede generali universae civitatis illius in aeternam gloriam transituram trucidat infantiam; aestimans fore ut, nullo illic parvulo non occiso, occideretur et Christus. At ille, qui sanguinem suum pro mundi redemptione fundendum in aliam differret aetatem, Aegypto se parentum ministerio subvectus intulerat, repetens scilicet Hebraeae gentis antique cunabula, et principatum veri Joseph majoris providentiae potestate disponens, ut illam diriorem omni inedia famem qua Aegyptiorum mentes veritatis inopia laborabant, veniens de caelo panis vitae et cibus rationis auferret; nec sine illa regione pararetur singularis hostiae sacramentum, in qua primum occisione agni, salutiferum crucis signum et pascha Domini fuerat praeformatum. Sanctus Leo Magnus, Sermo XXXIII, In Epiphaniae solemnitate III Source: Migne PL 54.242c-243b

When the wise men had adored the Lord and completed all their devotions, according to the warning of a dream, they do not return by the same road by which they had come. For it was not befitting for them who now believed in Christ to walk the paths of their old way of life, but having entered a new way to avoid the errors they had left. Which indeed confounded Herod's plot, who under the appearance of duty was inclined to a wicked crime against the infant Jesus. Hence when his hope in his design unravelled, the anger of the king rose to a greater fury. For considering the time which the wise men had indicated, he poured out his cruel rage on all the male children of Bethlehem, and in a general massacre in the whole of that city slew the infants who thus passed to their eternal glory, thinking that, if every single babe was killed there, Christ too would be slain. But He who was delaying the shedding of His own blood for the world's redemption until another time, was carried and brought into Egypt by the aid of His parents, and thus sought the ancient cradle of the Hebrew race, and by the power of a greater providence took up the princely office of the true Joseph, in that He, the Bread of Life that came down from heaven 1 and the Food of reason, removed that worst of all famines, the lack of truth, in which the minds of the Egyptians were labouring. Nor without a stay in that land would the mystery of that unique victim have been complete, in which by the first slaying of the lamb was prefigured the saving sign of the Cross and the Lord's Passover. Pope Leo the Great, from Sermon 33, On The Epiphany 1 Jn 6.59