Flight into Egypt

==Extra-Biblical accounts==
[[File:Giovanni Battista Lucini - Christ calms the dragons.JPG|thumb|200px|''Christ calms the dragons'' by [[Giovanni Battista Lucini]] (1680-81)]]

===Christian===
The story was much elaborated in the [[infancy gospels]] of the [[New Testament apocrypha]] with, for example, palm trees bowing before the infant Jesus, Jesus taming dragons, the beasts of the desert paying him homage, and an encounter with the two thieves who would later be crucified alongside Jesus.<ref name="InfantGospel">[http://www.interfaith.org/christianity/apocrypha-first-infancy-gospel-of-jesus/ First Infancy Gospel of Jesus. chapter VIII]</ref><ref>[http://www.gnosis.org/library/psudomat.htm The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew] at The Gnostic Society Library, Christian Apocrypha and Early Christian Literature</ref>  In these later tales the family was joined by [[Salome (disciple)|Salome]] as Jesus' nurse. These stories of the time in Egypt have been especially important to the [[Coptic Orthodox Church]], which is based in Egypt, and throughout Egypt, there are a number of churches and shrines marking places where the family stayed. The most important of these is the [[Saints Sergius and Bacchus Church]], which is claimed to have been built on the place where the family had its home.

One of the most extensive and, in Eastern Christianity, influential accounts of the Flight appears in the perhaps seventh-century ''[[Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew]]'', in which Mary, tired by the heat of the sun, rested beneath a palm tree. The infant Jesus then miraculously has the palm tree bend down to provide Mary with its fruit, and release from its roots a spring to provide her with water.<ref>Mustafa Akyol, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=3xCxDAAAQBAJ The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims]'' (New York: St Martin's Press, 2017), pp. 114-15.</ref>

===Muslim===
The [[Quran]] does not include the tradition of the Flight into Egypt, though [[Al-Muʼminun]], 50 could conceivably allude to it: “And we made the [[Jesus in Islam|son of Maryam]] and his [[Mary in Islam|mother]] a sign; and we made them abide in an elevated place, full of quiet and watered with springs”. However, its account of the birth of Jesus is very similar to the account of the Flight in the ''Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew'': Mary gives birth leaning against the trunk of a date palm, which miraculously provides her with dates and a stream. It is therefore thought that one tradition owes something to the other.<ref>A.J. Wensinck and Penelope C. Johnstone, “Maryam”, in ''Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition'', ed. by P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Consulted online on 30 September 2018. {{doi|10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0692}}, {{ISBN|9789004161214}}.</ref><ref>Mustafa Akyol, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=3xCxDAAAQBAJ The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims]'' (New York: St Martin's Press, 2017), pp. 114-16.</ref>

Numerous later Muslim writers on the life of Jesus did transmit stories about the Flight into Egypt. Prominent examples include [[Abu Ishaq al-Tha'labi]], whose ''ʿArāʾis al-madjālis fī ḳiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ'', an account of the lives of the prophets, reports the Flight, followed by a stay in Egypt of twelve years; and [[al-Tabari]]'s ''[[History of the Prophets and Kings]]''.<ref>Oddbjørn Leirvik, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=IEUdCgAAQBAJ Images of Jesus Christ in Islam]'', 2nd ed. (London: Continuum, 2010), pp. 59, 64.</ref>