The Three Kings, when they set out on their journey, had left their power and luxury behind them. The star they gladly followed had led them into the unknown with all its perils. They had passed as strangers and pilgrims through foreign countries with no certainty that they would ever return in safety or see their native land again.

And they had taken this risk, not with the idea of gain or of adding to their Kingdoms, but only of paying homage to a greater King than themselves and of giving to him the produce of their country as a token of their submission to his sovereignty. Indeed they were so unworldly that, when they found the infant King of Kings, they did not hesitate to kneel in homage before him, poor and unknown though they saw and knew him to be.

Very different from King Herod, whose lust for power and luxury had led him to secure his throne by murdering, among others, his wife and three of his sons.