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CyYPRIAN’s AD DONATUM AS A MYSTAGOGIC PROTREPTICUS
THIRD PART: PROTREPTIC
In a recent study,?? Enno Edzard Popkes observes that what Cyprian says
about baptism in Ad Donatum fits well with his later baptismal theology.
Stylistically, however, Ad Donatum differs from what Cyprian teaches later
as a bishop. Popkes explains this. In Ad Donatum, he contends, Cyprian is
still much closer to what he heard as catechumen and to what he experienced
when he was baptized.”? Furthermore, Cyprian as a bishop teaches for certain
types of given pastoral reasons, whereas Cyprian in Ad Donatum follows
literary intentions. They may partially be called autobiographical, as Popkes
suggests, but we have to take into account that Cyprian clearly focuses on
his conversion, which culminates in his baptism. This is a parallel not only
to Augustine’s Confessions, but also to many other early Christian apologies.
In this genre, in fact, as Jakob Engberg shows,” the author at least mentions
his own conversion and thus encourages his audience to follow him. Donatus
is certainly a synecdochic addressee. The intended one, of course, is every
reader. Nevertheless, Cyprian clearly concentrates on this encouragement.
So Ad Donatum could be classified as a protrepticus, as Marian Szarmach
suggests.”° His objections, however, of superficiality (290: “Dieses Werk ist
im Hinblick auf den Inhalt oberflächlich”) and of rhetorical conventionality
(esp. 294-295), as well as older interpretations ofthe work as ahintto aclumsy
neophyte,”° disregard the subtlety of Cyprian’s writing. Ad Donatum is
a careful mystagogy, as we have discussed above, not a baptismal catechesis,
and we may not expect dogmatic completeness. And although, as Szarmach
stresses, Cyprian makes use of rhetorical commonplaces, Ad Donatum,
seen as a protrepticus, remains a very purposeful composition. I will try to
illustrate this on the basis of two observations. The first one concerns the
audience, the second one concerns the way in which Cyprian communicates
with Donatus, who represents the audience.
As to the audience, Cyprian’s writing is very reader-oriented. In addition
to the artful prose, with its rhetorical stylization and elaborate rhythm,
the subtle allusions to the classics also suggest an audience that obviously
belongs to the well-educated upper class. Also, two other aspects indicate
the social status of the intended audience:
?? Popkes, Tauftheologie, 1053-1054.
® Popkes, Tauftheologie, 1053.
4 Engberg, Education.
Szarmach, Protreptik.
Presented and persuasively refuted by Gassman, Conversion, 248-256.
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