VENEZUELA: South American republic; bounded on the north by the Caribbean Sea, on the east by the Atlantic and British Guiana, on the south by Brazil and Colombia, and on the west by Colombia; its area is estimated at 363,728 square miles; its population (1908) is estimated at 2,661; 569. It became independent of Spain in 1823, but remained a part of the united republic which then embraced also Colombia and Ecuador. As a sepa rate country it began its existence in 1829, though only to pass through a period of internal unrest and civil wars. In 1864 it became the United States of Venezuela. The population is very largely of a mixed race, the pure whites forming only about 10 per cent, negroes numbering 120,000 (slavery was abolished in 1833), and there are 325,000 Indians, 270,000 of whom are civilized. Nearly all are of the Roman Catholic faith, which is the state religion, with toleration for other forms. The organization of the Roman Catholic Church came relatively late, though in 1637 Caracas was the seat of a bishopric for the whole land, and in 1803 it was made the met ropolitan city; it now has five suffragan sees, viz.: XIL-11 Barquisimeto (erected 1847, received a bishop 1$68); Calabozo (erected 1863, received a bishop 1881); Sto. Guayana (erected 1791); Merida (erected 1777), and Zulia. There are 428 parishes. The Anglican communion is represented, as is the Presbyterian, with two congregations, the Methodists with one, the Reformed Church of the Netherlands with one, and. the German Lutheran with one. Education is free and compulsory, with 2,000 public schools, 59 high schools and colleges, five teachers' seminaries, two universities, and three lesser-developed high schools. Yet most of the population can neither read nor write. [A concordat was negotiated be tween Pius IX. and the president of Venezuela July 26, 1862.]

(Wilhelm Götz†.)

Bibliography: R. M. Baralt and R. Diaz, Resumen de la Historic de Venezuela, 3 vols., Curagao, 1887; W. Sievers, Venezuela, Hamburg, 1888; F. Tejera, Manual de Historic de Venezuela, Caracas, 1895; W. E. Curbs, Venezuela, London, 1896; T. C. Dawson, The South American Republics, part 2, New York, 1904; J. Humbert, Les Origines ven&ueliennes, Bordeaux, 1905; W. L. Scruggs, The Colombian and Venezuelan Republics, Boston, 1905.

VENI, CREATOR SPIRITUS: An early hymn of disputed authorship. George Fabricius (1564) assigns it to Ambrose; Thomasius and Daniel, to Charlemagne; the Eucyclopa'dia Britannica (11th ed., xiv. 185-186), to Charles the Bald; and Mone, Wackernagel, and March, to Gregory the Great. It is first mentioned in the ASM in an account of the removal of the relics of St. Marculfus, 898 A.D. The Anglican Church retains it in the offices for ordering of priests and consecrating of bishops; the Roman Church, additionally, in the consecration of the pope and coronation of a king. It is found, generally, in the German breviaries and missals of the thirteenth to the fourteenth century. Its true author is doubtless Rabanus Maurus (q.v.), pupil of Alcuin, bishop of Mayence, and poet-laureate of the time of Charlemagne. The arguments in behalf of this view are: (1) The hymn can be attributable only to a scholar, a theologian, and a poet. (2) Its latest date is restricted by the considerations just offered, and its earliest date depends on the doctrinal point of the procession of the Holy Spirit from both the Father and the Son. This was affirmed (by adding Filioque to the Creed) by the Council of Toledo, 589, and reaffirmed by the Synod of Aquisgranum (Aachen), 809 A.D. (3) The word "paracletos " in the hymn is, scanned differently from Prudentius and Adam of St. Victor, who in the usual manner make the penultimate syllable short. This would tend to establish the author as a person who pronounced Greek by quantity rather than by accent, and certainly shows him to have understood that language. (4) The hymn (divested of its modern stanza, Da gaudiorum, etc., and of Hincmar of Reims' doxology, Sit laws, etc.) was found by Christopher Brower (1559-1617) in " an approved and very ancient manuscript." Brower was a Jesuit and the antiquarian and rector of the college at Fulda, and he published the poems of Rabanus Maurus as an appendix to those of Fortunatus (Cologne, 1617). Wackernagel (i. 75) admits that this assignment deserves "some notice," though he prefers the Gregorian authorship. (5) But this hymn does not appear among the eight which are included in the

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works of Gregory the Great and does appear in those of Rabanus Maurus (MPL, exii., 1657). (6) Charlemagne was not scholar enough to have composed it without Alcuin's help (Wackernagel, i. 75). (7) The hymn is really a paraphrase of Rabanus Maurus' own chapter on the Holy Spirit (MPL, exi., 25); and in his hymn Eterne rerum coeditor, et clarus, etc., Rabanus Maurus scans "paracletos" as in the Veni, Creator. The best-known English translations are "Come, Holy Ghost, all quickening fire," by John Cosin (1627), and "Come, O Creator Spirit blest," by Edward Caswall (1849).

Samuel W. Duffield†.

Bibliography: S. W. Duffield, Latin Hymn-Writers and their Hymns, chap. aii., New York, 1889; Julian, Hymnology, pp. 1208-11; H. A. Daniel, Thesaurus hymnologicus, i. 213, iv. 124, 5 vols., Leip.9ic, 1841-58; R. C. Trench, Sacred Latin Poetry, pp. 184-186, London, 1884 ; P. Wackernagel, D aa deutsche Kirchenlied, i. 75, Leipsic, 1864; Seven Great Hymns of the Mediaroat Church, pp. 134-139, New York, 1885; D. T. Morgan, Hymns of the Latin Church, pp. 153-154, 283-284 (London), 1871 (Eng. transl. and Latin teat); N. Smith, Hymns historically Famous, pp. 15-17, Chicago, 1901; D. J. Donahoe, Early Christian Hymns, pp. 107-108, New York, 1908 (Eng. tranalJ.