Uniates are Eastern Christians in external com- munion with tlie see of Rome, and are most numerous in those provinces which formerly belonged to Poland. When Sigismund III was elected to the crown of Po- land, being a zealous agent of the Jesuits, he at once took measures for reconciling the Polish Church to Rome. His plans were so successful that the archbish- op of Kief summoned a synod at Brest, in Lithuania, to
UNICORN
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UNICORN
whom he presented the necessity and advantages of a union with Rome. Tlie clcrc;y favored the project, but it met with a stroma op|)osiiion from the hiity, and could not then be carried into effect. At a synod which met at the same phice Dec. 2, l.')'.»4, the arclibishop and several bisliops gave tlieir assent to the scheme of union which had been proposed at the Council of Flor- ence, thus recognising tiie Filioqne, or double procession of the Niccne Creed, and acknowledging the supremacy of the pope. They stood out, however, for retaining the use of the vernacular Slavonic in the celebration of divine service for the ritual and discipline of the Eastern Church. On the return of the bishops sent to Kome to announce this event, the king, in 150(5, con- vened the synod at lirest for the publication and intro- ducti(ui of the union. This was met by a public pro- test on the part of the opposite party, which repudiated the acts of the Uniates, and declared their unaltered at- tachment to the ancient Church of their country and to the patriarch of Constai>tinople. Sigismnnd deprived them of their churches and convents, and forbade the promulgation of (ireek doctrines in his dominions. This division of the Church continued in full force until the partition of Poland, in 1772, at which time between two aiui three millions of the Uniates gave up their al- legiance to Rome, and returned to the Eastern Church. In 1839 2,000,000 more were reconciled ; but there are still about 300,000 in Russia and 3,000,000 in Austria. See Krasinski, Reform in Poland; Mouravief, Hist, of the Church of Russia ; 'SeaXe, Putriajrhate of Alexan- dria.— Blunt, /list, of Sects, s. v.
Unicorn is the invariable but unfortunate render- ing in the A. V. of a Heb. word which occurs nine times in three slighth' varied forms {CN"l, reem, Numb, xxiii, 22; xxiv, 8; plur. [C^TSN"), 7'e(^;«!m] Psa. xxix, 6; Isa. xxxiv, 7; D''Xn, j-eeym, Psa. xlii, 10; D'^j, reym, Job xxxix, 9, 10; and D'H, rem [only with plur. C'S'l, re- »«'/«], Psa. xxii, 21; never with the article; Sept. fio- I'OKipiof; or aSpi'iQ; Vuig. rhinoceros or unicornis') as the name of some large wild animal. More, perhaps, has been written on the subject of the unicorn of the an- cients than on any other animal, ami various are the opinions which have been given as to the creature in- tended. The etymology of the Heb. term (accoi-ding to Gesenius, from DX"l = C1i, to he high ; but according to Fiirst, from an obscure root CS;"|), to roar') ajfords no clear indication of the animal, and hence we must resort to indirect means for elucidating the subject.
I. Scriptural Characteristics. — The great strength of tlie 7-eem is mentioned in Numb, xxiii, 22; Job xxxix, 11 ; his having two horns in Dent, xxxiii. 17 ; his fierce nature in Psa. xxii, 21: his indomitalile disposition in Job xxxix, 9-11; the active and playful hal)its of the young animal are alluded to in Psa. xxix, G; while in Isa. xxxiv, 0, 7, wdiere Jehovah is said to be preparing "a sacrifice in Hozrah," it is added, '^ Re'emim shall come down, and the bullocks with the bulls." The following is a close rendering of Job's famous description of this animal (xxxix, 9-12) :
" Will Keyni be disposed to serve thee? Would lie iwri-huncc lodge on thy sr:ill? Caiist \\\"n tie Kevm in a furrow [with] his braid? Will he perchance liariow valleys ;ifter ihee? Wilt thou trust in him, because vast [is] his force ; Or leave to him thy labor? Wilt thou believe in him, that he will return [home]
thv seed. Or [into] thy threshing-plat gather [it]?"
TI. Afoile):n Affempig at hhtitificatioit, — 1. The reem of the llei)revv Hible has little at all to do with the one- horned animal mentioned by Ctesias (//;<//('a, iv, 25-27), yEliaii (A'«/. Anim, xvi, 20), Aristotle ( f/isi, Aniui, ii, 2, 8), Piiny (//. jV. viii, 31 ), and other (ireek and Roman writers (Solin. o.t: Xiceph. //. A", ix, 19), as is evident from Deut. xxxiii, 17, where, in the blessing of .Toscph, it is said, '• His glory is like the firstling of his bullock,
and his horns are like the horns of a unicorn''' (■'!"^p DS^), not, as the text of the A. V. renders it, "the horns of ?//(ieorn«." The two horns of the reem are "the ten thousands of Ephraim and the thousands of ]\Ianasseh" — the two tribes which sprang from one — i. e. Joseph, as two horns from one head. This text puts a one- horned animal entirely out of the question, and, in con- setpience, disposes of the opinion held by Bruce {Trav, V, 89) and others, that some species of rhinoceros is de- noted, or that maintained by some writers tiiat tiie revm is identical with some one-horned animal said to have been seen by travellers in South Africa and in Thibet (see Barrow, Travels in South Africa, i, 312-318; Asi- atic Journal, xi, 154), and identical with the veritable unicorn of Greek and Latin writers.