The Quick and the Dead (idiom)

The Quick and the Dead is an English phrase originating in the Christian Bible and popularized by the Apostles' Creed, one of the earliest statements of faith in the Christian religion and still one of the most widely used in worship.

The phrase is found in two passages in the King James version of the Bible: in the Acts of the Apostles, (Acts 10:42) and also in the First Epistle of Peter, which reads

For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries: Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.

1 Peter 4:3-5

This passage advises the reader of the perils of following outsiders in not obeying God's will. Specifically it warns that those who sin, both the quick and the dead, will be judged by Jesus Christ. In other words, it implies that God is able to act on the sins of a person whether that person is alive (quick) or has passed into the afterlife (dead).

In the Apostles' Creed the phrase appears in the following passage (taken from the Book of Common Prayer).

He ascended into heaven,

And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;

From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

Language

The use of the word quick in this context is an archaic usage because of the publication of the King James Bible in 1611. In this context the word specifically means living or alive (a meaning still retained in the "quick" of the fingernails).^[1] It is derived from the Proto-Germanic *kwikwaz, which in turn was from a variant of the Proto-Indo-European form *g^wih₃wos - "lively, alive", from the root *g^weih₃- "(to) live" (from which also comes the Latin vivere and later the Italian and Spanish viva)^[2]. Its English meaning in later centuries shifted to "fast", "rapid", "moving, or able to move, with speed".^[3]

Secular Usage

The phrase has been commonly used throughout English-speaking history since its first publication in the 1549 Book of Common Prayer [1]. In particular it has been as a title for novels, films and other popular culture entities, in some cases to describe the act of gunfighting. The usage of the phrase in many such secular contexts uses the modern English meaning of the word quick meaning fast or smart rather than alive, either as the result of a misunderstanding or for the purposes of creating a double entendre (e.g. quick vs. dead in the context of gun battles can play on the fact that the being fast is generally a prerequisite for winning, and by implication, staying alive).

Notes