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STEFAN FREUND
obviously a well-educated pagan,? seems to seek to be baptized, and in order to
encourage him, Cyprian shares how, when he was baptized, God’s grace brought
about a complete inner conversion and gave him a thoroughly new worldview.
This short piece of writing, which consists of little more than ten modern
pages, does not belong clearly to a single literary genre. Donatus is addressed
as if Cyprian were writing a letter,’ the frame and the fictive speech seem
like a dialogue,* the topics mentioned are partly those of an apology, but
the tendencies are less defensive than protreptic.° Ad Donatum is therefore
often presented simply as a treatise.’
Particularly in recent decades, scholars have come to regard the writing
as a masterpiece of early Christian Latin literature and a milestone in the
development of Christian Latin Kunstprosa. Cyprian declares, in the beginning
of Ad Donatum, that he will refrain from using rhetorical devices:
When speech is concerned with the Lord God, the pure sincerity of speech depends
not on the force of eloquence for the arguments in support of faith but on facts.®
Cum de domino, de deo uox est, uocis pura sinceritas non eloquentiae uiribus
nititur ad fidei argumenta sed rebus. (Donat. 2)
Nevertheless, Cyprian’s style and argumentation are extremely artful and
deliberate. Furthermore, he alludes to pagan literature, especially poetry, in
zur christlichen Literatur. Handbuch der lateinischen Literatur der Antike, Band 4,
München 1997, 532-575; J. Partout Burns, Cyprian the Bishop, London, Routledge, 2002;
Maria Veronese, Introduzione a Cipriano, Brescia, Morcelliana 2009; Allen Brent, Cyprian
and Roman Carthage, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010; Victor Saxer, Cyprian
of Carthage, in Angelo Di Berardino (ed.), Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity, Downers
Grove, IVP Academic, 2014 [original: Nuovo dizionario patristico e di antichitä cristiane,
Genova, Marietti, 2006-2008], 2014, 1646-649. Recently, Mattias Gassman, Cyprian’s Early
Career in the Church of Carthage, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 70 (2019) 1-17, argues
that Ad Donatum should be dated just before the ordination and is meant to convince critics
ofthe episcopal candidate being controversial because of his pagan education and career.
For the (poor) prosopography see Molager, A Donat 9-10.
See e.g. Saxer, Cyprian of Carthage, 646; Michael Winterbottom, Cyprian’s Ad Donatum,
in Simon Swain — Stephen Harrison - Jas Elsner (eds.), Severan Culture, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 2007, 190: “letter.”
For the discussion see Molager, À Donat, 35-41; Winterbottom, Cyprian’s Ad Donatum,
191; Mattias Gassman, The Conversion of Cyprian’s Rhetoric? Towards a New Reading of
Ad Donatum, Studia Patristica 94 (2017) 247-257, 249.
The apologetic features have particularly been highlighted by Michele Pellegrino, Studi su
Vantica apologetica, Roma, Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1947, 107-119.
Jacques Fontaine, Aspects et problèmes de la prose d'art latine au IIF siècle. La genèse des
styles latins chrétiens, Torino, Bottega d’Erasmo, 1968, 169: “discours protreptique”; Marian
Szarmach, Ad Donatum des Heiligen Cyprian als rhetorischer Protreptik, Eos 77 (1989),
289-297.
So do, for example, Molager, A Donat, 9, and most translators.
All translations are taken from Roy J. Deferrari (ed., trans.), Saint Cyprian, Treatises,
Washington, 1958.
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