"ddouglass" wrote : | That's what I've been trying to do via unit test -- the JNDI lookup gets me back a Reference object that refers to the NamedXmlApplicationContext, but any attempt to use the object (casting to ApplicationContext or BeanFactory) fails down in the Spring AOP layers with IllegalArgumentException: object not of declared type. | Just in the process of replying to you - about class loader issues with your problem. Glad you fixed it. :-) View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3971983#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...