This volume contains the proceedings of the Fourth Triennial Patristics Conference on ‘Prayer and spirituality in the early Church’, held in Melbourne in 2005, with the general title of ‘The spiritual life’. It continues the distinguished tradition of the earlier volumes. The opening address was by the lamented Robert C. Hill, who drew on his years of labours in translating the exegetical works of the Antiochene theologians, especially John Chrysostom and Theodoret, to argue against the ‘experiential’ bias still found in treatments of spirituality and point to the centrality of an engagement with God through reflection on Scripture that we find in these theologians. He focused on their understanding of prayer, and showed how much there is to learn from these theologians, all too often neglected in this context. Then included are the other keynote lectures. There is a fine piece by Philip Esler on how the Lord might have understood his death, not by attempting to find access to his inner consciousness, but by asking what kind of social identity was available in his culture to someone, like Jesus, who suffered innocently after a mission of mercy and healing. It also demonstrates that a high-placed bureaucrat, such as Esler now is, has not relinquished his academic commitment. Allan Fitzgerald, in a profound essay on Augustine's understanding of the eucharist, takes us well beyond liturgiology into the heart of Augustine's faith. Susan Ashbrook Harvey shows us something of the place of the body in the Syriac tradition, in a lecture rich in insights and full of wonderful quotations from the Syriac Fathers. Philip Rousseau relates Evagrios's understanding of anger to modern philosophical and psychological accounts of the passions, drawing on a wealth of modern discussion without, however, any mention of Sorabji's volume on emotion. Interspersed with these longer lectures are many shorter essays: a fascinating discussion by Allie Ernst of the way the significant place Martha occupies as one of the myrrh-bearers in the eastern tradition has been overlooked by western scholars who focus on Mary Magdalene (in western tradition identified with her sister); several other discussions of feminine spirituality (Rhee on martyrs, Neil on a later letter to the Carthaginian virgin, Demetrias, unwittingly prominent in the early stages of the Pelagian controversy); a couple of pieces on Byzantine spirituality (a sharply conceived comparison of Evagrios and Gregory of Sinai by Eiji Hisamatsu, and a discussion of Nikitas Stithatos's understanding of the spiritual life by one of the Japanese translators of the Philokalia, Naoki Kuwabara); lots of essays on Augustine, especially a good discussion of the link between friendship and the soul's ascent by Naoki Kamimura; and a couple of essays on the bishops' world seen through their letters – Augustine's by Pauline Allen and Gregory the Great's by Chris Hanlon. The editors point out that this was the first of these conferences since the inauguration of the Western Pacific Rim Patristics Society; that it flourishes is evident from the contributors to this volume.