Mattias Gassman: Correcting Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana 4.14.31: Towards a New Interpretation of Cyprian's Ad Donatum

Readers since Augustine have recognized that Ad Donatum is marked by greater stylistic ornateness than Cyprian's other works. This ornateness is usually credited not to Cyprian's rhetorical skill (widely praised in antiquity) but instead to his inability, as a neophyte, to write in a fully Christian fashion; this interpretation has been reinforced by the incongruity between Cyprian's endorsement of simple speech (Ad Donatum 2) and the work's style. The core assumption of this interpretation, that Cyprian was an inexperienced neophyte when he wrote Ad Donatum, has in turn shaped many reconstructions of Cyprian's conversion and early ecclesiastical career. However, as this paper will show, this interpretation is rooted in a tendentious reading by Augustine (De doctrina christiana 4.14.31), which is based not on a careful investigation of Cyprian's literary or theological development but on Augustine's desire to claim Cyprian for his own rhetorical project. The common explanation for the work's style must thus be rejected. Ad Donatum 2, in turn, should not be treated as a manifesto on stylistics, but instead as an integral part of the work, whose case it supports by establishing Cyprian's claim to be speaking the simple, straightforward facts about divine grace rather than engaging in bloated rhetoric or pointless philosophizing. The Cyprian who wrote Ad Donatum was not an immature neophyte but a skilled Christian rhetorician. The widespread modern assumption that Ad Donatum gives us an unproblematic window into the mind of the newly converted Cyprian will thus have to be re-examined.