This volume is the second of a planned four-volume set of commentaries on the 22 books of Augustine's famously challenging City of God. The first volume, which treated Books 1–5, appeared in 2021 (K. Preuss's review for BMCR and J.J. O'Donnell's review for AJP 144 [2023] provide helpful background to Augustine's text and the history of C.'s project). This review will not repeat details found in reviews of the first volume beyond emphasising that Augustine believed that his longest text should be divided exactly as C. has done with the first ten books (cf. Aug. Ep. 1A*.1, ‘there are twenty-two books, which are too many to put together in one volume. If you want to make two volumes, they should be divided so that one volume has ten books and the other twelve. Those ten, of course, refute the vanities of non-believers, but the rest present and defend our religion … The first of them should contain the first five books, in which I argued against those who maintain that the worship clearly not of gods but of demons contributes to the happiness of this life, while the second volume should contain the five that follow against those who think that many gods, whether such gods or any whatsoever, should be worshipped through sacred rites and sacrifices on account of the life that will be after death’).

C. is well-situated to produce this highly desired commentary on Augustine's longest and, in many respects, most daunting text. She is widely published in the field of Augustinian Studies, including on literary aspects of the City of God. She is the author of a ‘purple and pink’ commentary on Confessions 1–4 for Cambridge's series of commentaries on ancient Greek and Latin texts. She is also an accomplished scholar of late antique historiography. C.'s explicit audience for this series is scholars who are encountering Augustine's text in a modern language rather than Latin. In order to make the commentary as accessible as possible, all lemmata are keyed to the 1955 CCSL Latin edition (a reprint of Dombart–Kalb's 1928 Teubner edition) and translated into English. C. helpfully includes both book and chapter headings as well as page numbers.

The commentary does not include a reprint of the Latin text. On the whole, individual lemmata are intended to explicate difficult elements of the sociocultural, philosophical and theological context of Books 6–10 of City of God. The volume is not intended to be a philological commentary along the lines of a Cambridge ‘green and yellow’ commentary. Consequently, it probably cannot be used as a primary textbook in a course that focuses on Latin translation, even with advanced undergraduate and graduate students. It is nevertheless well suited for both advanced undergraduate and graduate students in courses that include City of God in translation. Because C. has keyed the lemmata to the Latin text, students with strong Latin skills will be able to make good use of the commentary alongside the CCSL text.

Augustine began his work on City of God in 412/413 ce. He dedicated the text to Marcellinus, the Roman official who had overseen the suppression of the Donatists at the Council of Carthage in 411 ce, presumably in an effort to encourage Marcellinus’ ongoing support and also to insert himself into Marcellinus’ large social network. Following the shocking execution of Marcellinus in 413 ce, Augustine retreated from Carthage to Hippo. He did not return to Carthage again until late summer 416 ce, when he and the other North African Catholic bishops turned their attention to the suppression of Caelestius, Pelagius and the Pelagians. Books 6–10 were completed by 417 ce (p. 6), in the midst of Augustine's prolific production of anti-Pelagian texts. During this same period, Augustine managed his regular pastoral duties and continued to push for the Donatists to assimilate to Catholic Christianity. It is noteworthy, then, as C. observes, that the primary issues that animated his battles against the Donatists and the Pelagians in the 410s ce – the purity of the church; the nature of grace, free will and original sin – are largely absent from the first ten books of City of God. Only in Book 10 does Augustine assert that divine grace is necessary for human salvation. Likewise, he affirms a Nicene view of trinitarianism, but without extended analysis (p. 7). In large part, this is probably the case because the contents of Books 6–10 had already been determined at the start of the project, before the Pelagians entered Augustine's radar.

The volume begins with a helpful introduction to Books 6–10, with special emphasis on the fact that, after the first five books argued against the need to worship pagan gods so that human affairs flourished, these second five books address the claim that pagan gods must be worshipped in order to secure a good afterlife. Books 6–10 are especially challenging for most readers of City of God because Augustine engages thoughtfully with parts of the classical philosophical tradition. Varro's Antiquitates Divinae is the main target of Books 6–7 while Books 8–10 engage with the claims of Apuleius in De Deo Socratis, the Asclepius attributed to Hermes Trismegistus and the Greek Platonists (primarily Porphyry, but also some excerpts of Plotinus).

For all that Augustine had a reputation of being well-versed in Neoplatonism, his learning ‘should not be overestimated’ (p. 9). It is plausible that his familiarity was limited to whatever libri Platonici in Latin translation he read during his time in Milan in the mid-380s ce (cf. pp. 175–9 for additional discussion of Augustine as a problematic source for recreating the lost texts of Porphyry in particular). The brief introduction to the volume does an excellent job of situating Books 6–10 in their intellectual context and highlighting the most important points of Augustine's rhetorical strategy without getting so far into the weeds as to lose readers who are less familiar with Varro and the Platonists. I especially appreciated C.'s point that it is only in Book 10 that Christian scripture and theology come to the fore as Augustine delineates Platonism from Christianity.

The commentary is organised by book, with individual books prefaced by a brief introduction to its most significant arguments. C. is most focused on helping readers make sense of specific difficulties in passages. She wisely leaves the work of interpretation to readers. This contained approach allows readers to skip around the commentary in accordance with their specific interests without being overly disoriented. Individual lemmata are generally well selected, with an emphasis on filling in context that will not be immediately obvious to non-expert readers (so, nearly all readers). The information provided is detailed and helpfully brings together relevant passages from Christian scripture and classical Greek and Latin texts. There is also some effort to connect ideas to texts beyond Augustine, though this is a little more scattershot. C. uses cross-references effectively throughout, to alert and remind readers that Augustine has handled a particular topic elsewhere in City of God. Finally, there is a judicious use of relevant secondary scholarship in the commentary (with the references collected at the end of the volume, pp. 238–44). The volume concludes with an index of the most significant themes in Books 6–10.

C.'s well-researched and insightful commentary on Books 6–10 of City of God is a very welcome addition to Augustine scholarship. It is well produced, free of obvious errors and easy to use. Books 6–10 in particular are exceptionally challenging to readers who lack a strong background in the traditions of Graeco-Roman philosophy; yet they are crucial for understanding the ways in which Augustine's exposure to Platonism shaped his understanding of Christianity not only before his conversion but throughout his time as a Christian bishop and intellectual. C.'s volume goes a long way towards making these important books more legible to Augustine's readers.