Quick, John, an English Presbyterian divine, was born at Plymouth in 1636. Having determined to en- ter the ministry, he was ordained in 1658. AYhen the Nonconformity bill of 1662 was passed, he joined the conforming party, and was subjected to imprisonment. After his release, he went to London, and became the pastor of a Presbyterian congregation. He also inter- ested himself in the French Protestants, and cared for those of the Huguenots who touched London on their way to a refuge from the intolerant measures of their own countrymen, lie even wrote in their defence Sy- nodicou in Gallia Reformata (Loud. 1692, 2 vols, fol.), being a history of the Reformed Church in France ; and lames Sacrce Gallicance, a biography of fifty Re- formed French preachers, interrupted, however, by the death of Quick, which occurred in 1706. He left in manuscript several sermons and treatises, which all evince a superior mind. See Allibone, Diet. Brit, and A mer. A uth. s. v. ; Hook, Eccles. Biog. viii, 183.
Quicksands, The (>) Svpng, Vulg. Syrtis), more properly, The Syrtis (Acts xxvii, 17), the broad and deep bight on the North African coast between Car- thage and Cyrene. In the above passage it is stated that when the ship in which Paul was embarked was driven past the isle of Clauda on the south, the mari- ners, as would now be said, struck the sails, and scudded under bare poles, lest they " should fall into the quick- sands." The original word syrtis denotes a sand-bank, or shoal, dangerous to navigation, drawn, or supposed to be drawn (from avpw, " to draw"), together by the cur- rents of the sea. According to others, the name is de- rived from serf, an Arabic word for " desert." For two reasons this region was an object of peculiar dread to the ancient navigators of the Mediterranean — partly because of the drifting sands and the heat along the shore itself, but chiefly because of the shallows and the uncertain currents of water in the bay. Joseph us, who was himself once wrecked in this part of the Mediter- ranean, makes Agrippa say ( War, ii, 16, 4), (poftepai Kai rolg aKovovm Si'ipme. So notorious were these dan- gers that they became a commonplace with the poets (see Horace, Odes, i, 22, 5; Ovid, Fast. iv. 499; Yirgil. Jl.il i, 1 11 ; Tibul. iii, 4, 91 ; Lucan, Phars. ix, 431). It is most to our purpose here, however, to refer to Apolloniiis Rhodius. who was familiar with all the notions of the Alexandrian sailors. In the fourth book of his Argo- naut. 1232-1237, he supplies illustrations of the passage before us in more respects than one — in the sudden vio- lence (avap-ndyCnv) of the terrible north wind (6Xoj) Bopiao SrutWa), in its long duration (ivvta irdaac Nu*Tac o/uuc (coi roarra (pip' i'lpaTa). and in the terror which the sailors felt of being driven into the Syrtis (IIpo7rp6 /<a\' tvCoSi Svpnv, oSf' , ovk'eti vugtoq oiric- ato Nj/iot ttsXei). See Clauda; Eukoclydox. There
were properly two Syrtes — the eastern, or larger, now called the Gulf of Sidra, and the western, or smaller, now the Gulf of Cubes. It is the former to which our attention is directed in this passage of the Acts. The ship was caught by a north-easterly gale on the south coast of Crete, near Mount Ida, and was driven to the island of Clauda. This line of drift, continued, would strike the greater Syrtis, whence the natural appre- hension of the sailors. See Ship. The danger was not so imaginary in this case, we apprehend, as Dr. Falconer {Dissert, on St. Paul's \'oyage, p. 13) conceives; for the apprehension does not appear to have been entertained till the ship had been driven past the isle of Clauda, which, as we take it, is mentioned merely as the last point of land which had been seen till the ship was wrecked on the isle of Melita. The position of that island must be regarded as indicating the course in which they were driven ; and if that were Malta, it is clear that, had that course not been arrested by the in- termediate shipwreck, they would, in all probability, have been driven upon the Syrtis Minor, which we may therefore conclude to have been the subject of their apprehension. That apprehension only becomes "imaginary" when Meleda in the Adriatic is taken, as Dr. Falconer himself takes it, for the Melita of Script- ure. It may, therefore, be added to the arguments in favor of Malta that its identification with Melita gives reality to the fear entertained by the mariners, which, under the other alternative, must be supposed to have been imaginary'. See Malta. The best modern ac- count of this part of the African coast is that which is given by Admiral Smyth (in his Memoir on the Medi- /< rram an, p. 87-91, 186-190), who was himself the first to survey this bay thoroughly, and to divest it of many of its terrors.— Kitto; Smith. See Shipwreck.
Quicunque vult. These are the initial words of the symbol known as the Athanasian Creed. The real composer of this ancient formulary being unknown, its origin is a mere matter of conjecture. A cursory- notice of its history in ancient and modern times is all that can be here attempted. It probably had its origin in the Gallican Church. It was first used in that Church. Gallican councils and bishops have always treated it with especial deference. Churches which re- ceived the Gallican Psalter received with it this '' e.x- positio tidei." The oldest known translation into the vernacular was Gallican, as prescribed by Hincmar of Rheims to his priests. The first writers who cite its words were Avitus of Vienne and Caesarius of Aries ; the oldest commentator upon its text was Venantius Fortu- natus, bishop of Poitiers; and MSS. were nowhere so abundant or so ancient as in Gaul (Waterland).