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Veni Creator Spiritus

an ancient and celebrated hymn of the Roman Breviary, which occurs in the offices of the Feast of Pentecost for Vespers and Tierce, and in the Pontifical for the Ordination of Priests, Consecration of Bishops or of a Church, the "Ordo ad Synodum," and some other solemn services. Its authorship has been ascribed to Charlemagne, also to Gregory the Great, St. Ambrose, or Rabanus Maurus. It was translated by Bishop Cosin, again by Dryden, whose version was adapted by John Wesley and Toplady. The labors of more than 30 later translators have not stripped this noble hymn of all its dignity. The Veni Creator Spiritus must not be confounded with another hymn to the Holy Ghost, Veni Sancte Spiritus, Et emitte coelitus, the "Golden Sequence," which ranks among the masterpieces of Latin sacred poetry. The latter belongs not to the Breviary, but to the Missal, in which it forms a Sequence in the Mass of Pentecost Sunday and Octave. It is in five stanzas, each consisting of six lines of seven-syllable trochaic verse.

It is certainly not older than the beginning of the 13th century. It has been variously ascribed to King Robert II. of France, to Hermannus Contractus, to Stephen Langton, and, with perhaps most probability, to Pope Innocent III.

The best translations are those by Caswall and by Neale. VENIRE FACIAS (ve-nīrē fā'shyas) (Latin, "that you cause to come"), in law, a writ or precept directed to the sheriff, requiring him to cause a jury to come or appear in the neighborhood where a cause is brought to issue to try the same. This writ was abolished in England in 1852, but the precept issued by the justices of assize, which is substituted, is sometimes loosely spoken of as a venire.