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CyYPRIAN’s AD DONATUM AS A MYSTAGOGIC PROTREPTICUS
an indirect and very sophisticated manner, as Antonio Quacquarelli, Jacques
Fontaine, Vinzenz Buchheit, Michael Winterbottom, and Mattias Gassman
have persuasively argued.?
In this paper, I would like to focus on the main subject of the text, which is
the personal experience of conversion and baptism and Cyprian’s illustration
and explanation of his personal experience of conversion and baptism," but
from a particular point of view. Cyprian, I contend, presents a preliminary
initiation into Christian mysteries for an educated pagan readership. In other
words, he writes a mystagogic protrepticus. I begin, therefore, with a sketch
of the work’s structure. This will further an understanding of how Cyprian
generally approaches the topic of Christian mysteries. I then examine how
Cyprian presents baptism. Finally, I consider his mystagogic strategies.
° Antonio Quacquarelli, La retorica antica al bivio (L’Ad Nigrinum di Luciano e l’Ad
Donatum di Cipriano), Roma, Edizioni scientifiche Romane, 1956; Fontaine, Aspects, 149—
176; Vinzenz Buchheit, Cyprian, Seneca und die laudes agricolarum Vergils, Rheinisches
Museum 122 (1979), 348-359; Michael Winterbottom, Cyprian’s Ad Donatum, 190-198;
Gassman, Conversion, 248-250.
For the conversion narrative see Pierre Courcelle, Antécédents autobiographiques des
Confessions de Saint Augustin, Revue de Philologie 31 (1957), 23-51; Molager, A Donat, 16—
20; Elisabeth Fink-Dendorfer, Conversio. Motive und Motivierung zur Bekehrung in der Alten
Kirche, Frankfurt, Peter Lang, 1986; Geneviéve Ellien, LAd Donatum de Cyprien de Carthage
et le thème de la curiosité, in A. Foulon — M. Reydellet (eds.), Au miroir de la culture antique.
Mélanges offerts au Président René Marache, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes,
1992, 135-182; Rolf Noormann, Ad salutem consulere. Die Pardnese Cyprians im Kontext
antiken und frühchristlichen Denkens, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009, 47-81;
Jakob Engberg, The Education and (Self-)Affirmation of (Recent or Potential) Converts. The
Case of Cyprian and the Ad Donatum, Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum 16 (2012), 129¬
144; idem, Human and Divine Agency in Conversion in Apologetic Writings of the Second
Century: “To Dance with Angels,” in Brigitte Secher Bogh (ed.), Conversion and Initiation in
Antiquity. Shifting Identities - Creating Change, Frankfurt, Peter Lang Edition, 2014, 77-99,
esp. 92-93. For the place of Ad Donatum within Cyprian’s frequently discussed baptismal
theology see e.g. Adhemar D’Ales, La theologie de Saint Cyprien, Paris, Gabriel Bauchesne,
1922, 225-242; August Jilek, Initiationsfeier und Amt. Ein Beitrag zur Struktur der Theologie
der Ämter und des Taufgottesdienstes in der frühen Kirche (Traditio Apostolica, Tertullian,
Cyprian), Frankfurt, Peter Lang, 1979, esp. 252-253; Brigitte Proksch, Christus in den
Schriften Cyprians von Karthago, Wien, LIT, 2007, 146-151; Abraham van de Beek, Cyprian
on Baptism, in Henk Bakker — Paul van Geest — Hans van Loon (eds.), Cyprian of Carthage.
Studies in His Life, Language, and Thought, Leuven, Peeters, 2010, 143-164; Enno Edzard
Popkes, Die Tauftheologie Cyprians. Beobachtungen zu ihrer Entwicklungsgeschichte
und schrifthermeneutischen Begründung, in D. Hellholm — T. Vegge — @. Norderval —
C. Hellholm (eds.), Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism: Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and
Early Christianity. Waschungen, Initiation und Taufe: Spätantike, Frühes Judentum und
Frühes Christentum, Berlin, De Gruyter, 2011, 1051-1070, esp. 1053-1054.
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