We first find the word in Scripture at Jer. The order is believed to have arisen among the Chaldeans and to have come down through the Assyrian, Medean and Persian kingdoms. The practiced divination, interpreted auguries and dreams, and professed to foretell the destinies of men. They were particularly famous for their skill in astronomy, and had kept a record of the more important celestial phenomena, which dated back several centuries prior to the reign of Alexander the Great. 9-11 and xiii.
Nothing is said as to the number who came nor as to the country whence they came.
The number and quality of the gifts has become the foundation for a tradition that they were three kings from Arabia, and during the Middle Ages it was professed that their bodies were found and removed to the cathedral at Cologne. But in addition to the knowledge carried by captive Israelites, the men of the East had other light. Moreover, the Septuagint translation made at Alexandria about 280 B. C. had rendered the Old Testament Scriptures into Greek, the language of commerce, and had carried the knowledge of Hebrew prophecy into all lands, and had wakened a slight but world-wide expectation of a Messiah. But all this put together can not account for the visit of the magi. They came to Jerusalem after Jesus had been presented in the temple, and taken back to Bethlehem, and, therefore, when the infant Jesus was more than forty days old.