Rightly, then, are those called children who know Him who is God alone as their Father, who are simple, and infants, and guileless, who are lovers of the horns of the unicorns.

Clement of Alexandria

“Are unicorns real?” my daughter Erin asks me.

“No girl. Unicorns are make-believe.”

“Yeah, I know, just like dinosaurs.”

“No, dinosaurs are real. They just don’t exist anymore. They lived a long time ago.”

“Did unicorns live a long time ago?

“No, girl. Unicorns are make-believe.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve had this conversation with her. But she’s 4 years-old, and unicorns are an important part of her life. It makes sense that she’d want to double-check every now and then.

Now, for those wondering about what Clement was talking about, it is worth noting that there was a time in history when the existence of unicorns had not yet been settled. (Also true of dragons, for that matter.) Maybe the existence of rhinos, which one could describe as fat horses with a horn on their nose, found its way to Alexandria via the telephone game. Who knows? The point is, in his defense, real unicorns may have been within the realm of the possible.

However, he might actually be making an allusion to the Bible, which, of course, talks about unicorns.

If that’s news to you, it’s because most modern translations do not use “unicorn.” But the ancient Greek and Latin translations did. And the King James Version, following them, mentions unicorns nine times.

Since Clement specifically mentions the horn of the unicorns, that narrows the possible allusion to three verses:

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