I can now supplement my old arguments about the parallels between the Marcosian redemption baptism and Secret Mark with the added information that Irenaeus could have used the verb descendo to denote the heretical group's claims that Jesus 'penetrated into' Christ.
Indeed it is very important to note that Irenaeus certainly used descendo in the context of sexually charged rituals associated with 'those of Mark' for we see at the beginning of the description of the Marcosians that:
He devotes himself especially to women, and those such as are well-bred, and elegantly attired, and of great wealth, whom he frequently seeks to pervert/lead after him [abducere tentans], by addressing them in such seductive words as these [dicit blandiens eis]: "I am eager to make thee a partaker of my Love [gratis], since the Father of all doth continually behold thy angel before His face. Now the place of thy angel is among us: it behoves us to become one. Receive first from me and by me Love. Adorn thyself as a bride who is expecting her bridegroom, that thou mayest be what I am, and I what thou art. Establish the germ of light in thy nuptial chamber. Receive from me a spouse, and become receptive of him, while thou art received by him. Behold Love has descendit in te[penetrated you?]; open thy mouth and prophesy" ... She then makes the effort to reward him, not only by the gift of her possessions (in which way he has collected a very large fortune), but also by yielding up to him her person, desiring in every way to be united to him, that she may become altogether one with him [ut cum eo descendat in unum]. [AH i.13.3]
There is absolutely no doubt that the Latin descendo is used 'in the obscene sense' throughout the description of the followers of Mark, a sect which has been demonstrated to be connected with Clement and his Alexandrian tradition.
As I have noted a long time ago, the Letter to Theodore has been completely misread by scholars. The Carpocratians are not boasting that THEIR Gospel of Mark has the bit about 'naked man and naked man' but rather is ridiculing Clement and his Alexandrian tradition of having a secret gospel which contains the idea of Jesus 'becoming one' with his disciple AND THIS has been turned around into a sexual metaphor using a play on the word descendo.
Similarly the sexual imagery is continued through the confused description which follows of the baptism ritual of the sect, where Irenaeus writes:
and on His coming to the water, there descended onto/went into/penetrated him ...
cum autem venisset ispe ad aquam, descendisse in cum ...
that Being who had formerly ascended on high, and completed the twelfth number, in whom there existed the seed of those who were produced contemporaneously with Himself ...
eum qui recurrit sursum, et implevit XII numerum, in quo inerat semen eorum qui conseminati sunt com eo ...
Moreover, he maintains that power which went descended/penetrated was the seed of the Father
Ipsam autem virutem quae desscendit, semen dicit esse Patris
which had in itself both the Father and the Son, as well as that power of Sige which is known by means of them, but cannot be expressed in language, and also all the AEons. And this was that Spirit who spoke by the mouth of Jesus, and who confessed that He was the son of Man as well as revealed the Father, and who, having descendens quidem in Jesum, unitus est [went into him was made one with Him?]. And he says that the Saviour formed by special dispensation did indeed destroy death, but that Christ made known the Father.
He maintains, therefore, that Jesus is the name of that man formed by a special dispensation, and that He was formed after the likeness and form of that (heavenly) Anthropos, who was about in eum descendere him [i.e. Christ]. After he [i.e. Christ] had received that AEon, He possessed Anthropos himself, and Loges himself, and Pater, and Arrhetus, and Sige, and Aletheia, and Ecclesia, and Zoe.
Such ravings, we may now well say, go beyond Iu, Iu, Pheu, Pheu, and every kind of tragic exclamation or utterance of misery. For who would not detest one who is the wretched centriver of such audacious falsehoods ...
The text is now universally regarded to be hopelessly corrupt. There are clear signs that the names 'Christ' and 'Jesus' have been substituted in a number of places. The original idea I believe is finally expressed in the discussion of the redemption baptism (which we will continue to discuss in some detail in future posts) in what concludes the section on the Marcosians, where we read:
For the baptism instituted by the visible Jesus was for the remission of sins, but the redemption of Christ who descended unto Jesus, was for perfection; and they allege that the former is animal, but the latter spiritual. [AH i.21.2]
Et baptisma quidem apparentis Jesu in remissionem esse peccatorem, redemptionem autem esse ejus qui descenderit spiritus ad perfectionem
Again where these two figures were understood by 'those of Mark' to be two separate individuals somehow reflected in a variant Gospel According to Mark (cf. AH iii.11.7 et al).
I have written about this before but it is all coming together in a new way. Even if it can't be proved that Irenaeus read the Letter to Theodore, we will see from Book Three that there was a Gospel of Mark where this idea of Jesus 'going into' Christ or Christ 'going into' Jesus where the Latin term could clearly be MISUSED to mean sexual penetration.
The real idea that was held by the group was the central mystical concept in Christianity reflected in the writings of Paul:
His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross [Eph 2:15,16]
You know the world is coming to an end when a Jew has to instruct Christians as to what the meaning of their faith really is. What's next a black president of the United States?
