ARCHDEKIN, Richard [Richardi ARSDEKIN]. Theologia Tripartita Universa, Complectens nune Bibliothecam perfecta Viri Ecclesiastici, ordine Sequenti. Tomus Primus. Controversiæ Heterodoxæ ac Scholasticæ. Tomi Secundi, Pars I. Theologia Speculativa. Tomi II. Pars II. Theologia Practica Universa. Tomus Tertius. Apparatus Practicus pro Omni Prorsus Functione Viri Ecclesiastici. Editionis Nonæ, ab Authore in singulis Partibus plurimum locupletatæ, & in novam Normam digestæ.

Venice: Apud Io. Jacobum Hertz, 1696. Quarto. pp. [xvi], 249, [7], 402, [x], 232. Title printed in red and black. Three parts in one volume with separate titlepages and pagination. Complete with half-title. Modern quarter calf on marbled boards by Paddy Kavanagh, Museum Bookbinders. Neat old library stamp ‘Clongowes Wood’ on titlepage. Some occasional foxing. A very good copy. Exceedingly rare.

No copy located on COPAC. Not in Lough Fea, Gilbert or Black. Sweeney 194 cites the Antwerp, 1678 edition.
Richard Archdekin [pseud. MacGiolla Cuddy], (1619-1693), Jesuit, was born in Kilkenny city on 16 March 1619, the son of Nicholas Archdekin and Ann Sherlock. He was a long term Jesuit professor of philosophy and theology at Louvain and Antwerp. Archdekin was a prolific writer. His most famous work, the ‘Praecipuae controversiae fidei’, was published in 1671 and went into eleven editions in his lifetime. The 1686 edition contains lives of Oliver Plunket, Catholic archbishop of Armagh, who was executed in London in 1681 and another victim of the Popish Plot, Peter Talbot, Catholic archbishop of Dublin and a former Jesuit, who died in prison at Dublin in 1680. Archdekin himself saw many revisions through the press and the book was published at Cologne, Ingolstadt, and Antwerp, all centres of Counter-Reformation publishing. The work, which consisted of three densely printed quarto volumes, was entitled ‘Theologia tripartita universa’ in 1686. Archdekin occasionally used anecdotes from Irish history as examples of the doctrines he was teaching. His decisions in cases of conscience caused some controversy and had to be revised in posthumous editions. He died at Antwerp on 31 August 1693 and was buried in the Jesuit burial-ground there. Archdekin was a gifted teacher, a great exponent of moral theology, and he typified the learned Irish Catholic exile, never forgetting his roots, but working abroad for the Counter-Reformation almost all of his adult life. Three separate titlepages to each part.