The Gospel of Matthew alone narrates the visit of magi, wise men or astrologers from an unspecified eastern land, who follow a star to Jerusalem and then, guided further, to Bethlehem, where they present the infant Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, and pay him homage as a newborn king. Their visit prompts King Herod, alarmed at reports of a rival king's birth, to question them and later, according to Matthew's following narrative, to order the killing of infant boys in Bethlehem, an act the magi avoid contributing to by being warned in a dream not to report back to Herod as he had asked.
Matthew does not specify the number of magi, a detail later tradition fixed at three based on the three gifts named in the text, nor does the Gospel identify them as kings, another later elaboration that entered Christian tradition and art, most famously through the medieval legend naming them Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. The star itself has attracted centuries of astronomical speculation seeking to identify it with a comet, planetary conjunction or nova, none of which has produced a scholarly consensus explanation.
The visit is commemorated in the Western church as the feast of Epiphany on 6 January, marking the manifestation of Jesus to the Gentile world represented by the magi, a theological emphasis distinct from the Eastern church's Epiphany observance on the same date, which centers instead on Jesus's baptism.