Have You Taken a Good Look at the Neighborhood the Late Second Century Roman Church was 'Making Its Home' in at the Time of Irenaeus? My God! It Could Have Been Called 'the Church of Park Avenue' ...

I am sorry there is something strange when you actually start thinking about (a) Irenaeus' acknowledgement that the Roman Church was being financed by the wicked Emperor Commodus (AH iv.30.1) (b) Commodus' rule being associated with the first 'age of peace' for the Church and (c) Hippolytus' story of the Catholic Church's 'katholoki' being located here.

It is impossible to reconcile these indisputable facts with the traditional story of Irenaeus as someone who preserved the original truth of the apostles.

Even I'd like to live in this neighborhood.

And listen again to the first words of Irenaeus' acknowledgment that the heads of the Church were sitting in the court of Commodus and receiving large amounts of money from this evil man:

For if God had not accorded this in the typical exodus, no one could now be saved in our true exodus; that is, in the faith in which we have been established, and by which we have been brought forth from among the number of the Gentiles. For in some cases there follows us a small, and in others a large amount of property, which we have acquired from the mammon of unrighteousness [AH iv 30.1]

The reference to 'exodus' implies that the Church came to the promised land of the Piscina Publica, a veritable 'land of milk and honey.' But doesn't it also imply that the place that it came FROM was somewhere other than Rome?

I certainly think so and I believe Irenaeus is also implying that Egypt was the true home of the Church - or in his terminology - the place from which it turned its back. Again, I can't prove it but it is worth doing some further investigations.