Augustine a former renown teacher of rhetoric came to be known as the great polemicist
celebrated as the champion of Donatism Manicheism and Pelagianism. Was it only the quality of
his theology and the favour of the imperial court that enabled him to gain such a reputation?
This case study of Augustine's anti-Donatist correspondence analyses his use of rhetoric
throughout the course of the Donatist controversy to answer this question. It is the case that
Augustine was consciously recreating the strategies of forensic rhetoric taught in the schools
across the Roman empire to achieve his polemical goals. Augustine's rhetoric shown by his
anti-Donatist letters is embedded in the classical tradition
