Feast of San' Ercole dei Rinoceronti (WAS: VV(11):April 15th

[David Morris]

http://let.kub.nl/mousebit/algemeen/prose/UNICORN.html

For a long time scientists could use the bible as a source for the existence 
of the unicorn. In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old 
Testament of about 250 B.C., the Hebrew re'em (aurochs) was rendered – 
wrongly – with the Greek monoceros (unicorn). In the Vulgate (the editio 
vulgata, the commonly published edition), the Latin bible translation by 
Hieronymus of 405 A.D., the animal was partly killed by using the Greek word 
rhinoceros (rhino) next to the Latin word unicornus (unicorn). So denying 
its existence was seen for centuries as heresy, because the text of the book 
of books should be seen as divinely inspired. In our modern bible 
translations we now meet the aurochs; but the tapir, wild bull or buffalo 
too. Not one unicorn. However, in the English King James translation there 
are still seven precise descriptions of the unicorn; like it always had been 
in the Old Testament. The unicorn or one of his different descendants plays 
in the Old Testament the role of the strong and mighty, sometimes in a good, 
sometimes in a bad sense. Read: Numeri 23:22, Deuteronomy 33:17, Job 39:12, 
Psalms 22:22, 29:6 and 92:11, and Isaias 34:7. As an example I take Psalms 
92:11. 'But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of the unicorn: I shall 
be anointed with fresh oil.'

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