I am particularly intrigued by this section of text which reads:
Etenim potuerunt dicere Apostoli, Christum descendisse in Jesum; aut illum superiorem Salvatorem, in eum qui sit dispositionis
which is translated into English as:
It certainly was in the power of the apostles to declare that Christ descended upon Jesus, or that the so-called superior Saviour upon the dispensational one ... for, had they known it, they would have also certainly stated it [AH iii.17.1]
But Lewis and Short direct our attention to a second meaning of the word descendo which typically means "to sink down, penetrate into anything" including "the obscene sense." So Catallus used this sense of the word in one of his poems:
Multus homo es, Naso, neque tecum multus homo
There are other examples of descendo being used in this way (Juv. 11, 163) and one wonders if Irenaeus is aware of a tradition like that reported among the Carpocratians that the Gospel in the name of Peter's disciple Mark had "naked man with/on naked man."
The number of times in Book Three Irenaeus attacks the idea promulgated among the heretics that Jesus went down/pentrated Christ is staggering. I am not suggesting of course that Irenaeus believed in this doctrine. Rather that the terminology he used was open to an obscene interpretation like that in Secret Mark.
It should be noted that Book Three has what I consider to be a great number of parallels with ideas in To Theodore including what is written by Clement that:
during Peter's stay in Rome he [Mark] wrote an account of the Lord's doings, not, however, declaring all of them, nor yet hinting at the secret ones, but selecting what he thought most useful for increasing the faith of those who were being instructed. But when Peter died a martyr, Mark came over to Alexandria, bringing both his own notes and those of Peter, from which he transferred to his former book the things suitable to whatever makes for progress toward knowledge. Thus he composed a more spiritual Gospel for the use of those who were being perfected.
I noted along time ago that I saw parallels in the opening words of the work where Irenaeus says:
For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed "perfect knowledge," as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles. For, after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge [AH iii.1.1]
And then he eventually goes on to explicitly connect this controversy to (implicitly) negative claims about Peter in particular:
Can it really be, that Peter was not at that time as yet in possession of the perfect knowledge which these men discovered afterwards? According to them, therefore, Peter was imperfect, and the rest of the apostles were imperfect; and so it would be fitting that they, coming to life again, should become disciples of these men, in order that they too might be made perfect. [ibid iii.12.7]
I am telling you I am the only person in scholarship who actively works day and night to establish arguments for the authenticity of To Theodore and not merely attack Carlson's arguments against the text.
