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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Now, it is certainly required that what is subject to change be in a sense always coming to birth. In mutable nature nothing can be observed which is always the same. Being born, in the sense of constantly experiencing change, does not come about as a result of external initiative, as is the case with the birth of the body, which takes place by chance. Such a [spiritual] birth occurs by choice. We are in some manner our own parents, giving birth to ourselves by our own free choice in accordance with whatever we wish to be … moulding ourselves to the teaching of virtue or vice.
Everyday Asceticism 