And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.
All Commentaries on Matthew 2:23 Go To Matthew 2
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
De Con. Evan. ii. 10: Here is may be asked, How then could his parents go up every year of Christ’s childhood to Jerusalem, as Luke relates, if fear ofArchelaus now prevented them from approaching it? This difficulty is easily solved. At the festival they might escape notice in the crowd, and by returning soon, where in ordinary times they might be afraid to live. So they neither became irreligious by neglecting the festival, nor notorious by dwelling continually in Jerusalem. Or it is open to us to understand Luke when he says, they “went up every year,” as speaking of a time when they had nothing to fear from Archelaus, who, as Josephus relates, reigned only nine years. There is yet a difficulty in what follows; "Being warned in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee.” If Joseph was afraid to go into Judaea because one of Herod’s sons, Archelaus, reigned there, how could he go into Galilee, where another of his sons Herod was tetrarch, as Luke tells us? As if the times of which Luke is speaking were times in which there was any longer need to fear for the Child, when even in Judaea things were so changed, that Archelaus no longer ruled there, but Pilate was governor.
