The subtitle of this second collection by a distinguished scholar signifies not four different subjects but a regular interweaving of them, or rather a sustained demonstration of their inseparability. Chapter i infers from the plan and tenor of Irenaeus' Demonstration of the apostolic teaching that its aims were primarily catechetical. In chapter ii, reviewing the works explicitly addressed to catechumens in the fourth century, Ferguson concludes with regret that moral instruction is apt to take second place to the elucidation of symbols. Chapter iii shows that Barnabas, in one of the earliest glosses on Christian symbolism, takes pains to distinguish baptism not only from Jewish rites of ablution but from circumcision. Chapter iv attempts to square Origen's arguments for the baptism of infants and the salvation of unbaptised martyrs with his oft-repeated view that the rite is efficacious only when it marks the beginning of a new life in faith. In chapter v we find Gregory of Nyssa celebrating baptism as the door to rebirth and inward resurrection. An exposition of similar themes in all three Cappadocians is crowned in chapter vi by a nuptial metaphor from Gregory Nazianzen. Since the Cappadocians are so manifestly in the tradition of Origen, there is only half a truth in the conclusion to chapter vii, that ‘authors in the third century wrote exhortations to martyrdom, whereas preachers in the last half of the fourth century delivered exhortations to baptism’ (p. 123). Chapter viii concludes that Chrysostom's preaching at Epiphany does not lose its pastoral character when it takes Christ's baptism, rather than that of believers, as its subject. Ferguson advances a fine distinction between the rite itself and ‘what happens in’ it in chapter ix, where he claims that the early Fathers attribute inward circumcision to the Spirit without making baptism itself a new circumcision. In chapter x he proves comprehensively that baptism was not commonly administered to infants before the Constantinian era except when they were in peril of death. Chapter xi argues that the distinction between Christ's lowly incarnation and his second coming in glory was not devised to refute one particular group of opponents. Chapter xii finds few Christians, other than Gnostics, before the fourth century who held that the kingdom of God is already present; chapters xiii and xiv show that the expectation of a penultimate kingdom of the saints on earth was not widely entertained. Chapter xv ranges widely in its review of the symbolism attached to numbers in antiquity, while chapter xvi observes that the arts employed by Origen's God for the edification of sinners are equally indirect. Chapter xvii reminds us that, although the typical martyr was fighting for God against the idols of the nations, a death in this cause was also an act of political remonstrance. Thus the most eminent writers of the Early Church are united in the conviction that no understanding of catechesis, baptism or martyrdom is complete unless it makes reference to the end for which Christ came to earth.