Yes it is generally agreed they go back to common source material. The obvious choice is Hegesippus. But what I find interesting in light of this is that if you subtract the parallel material with Carpocrates from the Cerinthus entry (an entry which follows Carpocrates in Irenaeus) you are left with little more than a line:
... miracles. But at last Christ departed from Jesus, and that then Jesus suffered and rose again, while Christ remained impassible, inasmuch as he was a spiritual being.
There is clearly a 'set' here for the Ebionite section which follows Cerinthus which follows Carpocrates reads:
Those who are called Ebionites agree that the world was made by God; but their opinions with respect to the Lord are similar to those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They use the Gospel according to Matthew only
So the author could have simply said that they thought that Jesus was born from Joseph (and Mary) through regular human generation (as we see repeated basically in Carpocrates and then Cerinthus but instead he opts for an acknowledgement that he arranged the three in some way 'in this order' - i.e. Carpocrates, Cerinthus, Ebionites:
How Carpocrates acts sillily, in himself also alleging that existing things were made by angels.
That Cerinthus, in no wise indebted to the Scriptures, formed his opinion (not out of them), but from the tenets of the Egyptians.
What are the opinions propounded by the Ebionaeans, and that they in preference adhere to Jewish customs
Interestingly the copies of Irenaeus's Against Heresies says that Cerinthus came from Asia which matches the encounter he claims Cerinthus had with John 'in Ephesus.'
But another difficulty is clearly that the Ebionites really don't have anything in common with Cerinthus. Indeed even the structure of the order Carpocrates (sing.) Cerinthus (sing.) Ebionites (plur.) is odd. Among other disagreements the Ebionites are said to use Matthew in Irenaeus and the one original piece of information Irenaeus gives us about 'Cerinthus' is that he essentially held the beliefs associated with 'with those who prefer Mark' in Book Three - i.e. a suffering Jesus on the Cross and a Christ who united with Jesus at the baptism but left before the Passion. The implication would seem to be from Irenaeus work - which never identifies the Mark-sect - is that Cerinthus is the leader of that tradition. But there is nothing else to the account other than shared 'adoptionist' beliefs that there is too little to go on to take it serious.
Interestingly the same pattern appears in Pseudo-Tertullian's Against All Heresies - a related text to the others:
[1] Carpocrates, futhermore, introduced the following sect. He affirms that there is one Virtue, the chief among the upper (regions): that out of this were produced angels and Virtues, which, being far distant from the upper Virtues, created this world44 in the lower regions: that Christ was not born of the Virgin Mary, but was generated-a mere human being-of the seed of Joseph, superior (they admit) above all others in the practice of righteousness and in integrity of life; that He suffered among the Jews; and that His soul alone was received in heaven as having been more firm and hardy than all others: whence he would infer, retaining only the salvation of souls, that there are no resurrections of the body.
[2] After him brake out the heretic Cerinthus, teaching similarly. For he, too, says that the world was originated by those angels;46 and sets forth Christ as born of the seed of Joseph, contending that He was merely human, without divinity; affirming also that the Law was given by angels;47 representing the God of the Jews as not the Lord, but an angel.
[3] His successor was Ebion,48 not agreeing with Cerinthus in every point; in that he affirms the world to have been made by God, not by angels; and because it is written, "No disciple above his master, nor servant above his lord, " sets forth likewise the law as binding, of course for the purpose of excluding the gospel and vindicating Judaism.
Much of the material here has no parallel in either of the previous works - as brief as the entries are. Here we have three named individuals - i.e. Carpocrates, Cerinthus, Ebion (not 'the Ebionites). No reference to the 'secret Mark' doctrine of a Christ that comes at baptism and leaves before crucifixion. Here Ebion and Cerinthus could not be further apart in terms of dogma - one says that the angels made the world and the Torah, not God; the other, God made the world and Torah.
While in other heresiological compendiums it says something to the effect that the Ebionites believed a similar sort of generation for Jesus as the other two sects, nothing here appears to that effect. Indeed if we compare Carpocrates and Cerinthus their accounts of the generation to Jesus are much closer than anything we see in Irenaeus or Epiphanius:
Carpocrates: "[Christ] was generated-a mere human being-of the seed of Joseph"
Cerinthus: "Christ as born of the seed of Joseph, contending that He was merely human, without divinity"
In fact the account of Carpocrates seems to lift the words from Irenaeus's account quite literally whereas Cerinthus is more a cursory summary. It is hard to know what to make of this situation other than Cerinthus and Carpocrates are certainly related heresies. Odd that Irenaeus would set Cerinthus up against John twice in Against Heresies - (a) with John in the Ephesian bathhouse before the story of Marcion and Polycarp's encounter in Book 3 and (b) as the one John wrote against in his canonical writings. Irenaeus spent great efforts manufacturing Cerinthus as John's foil even though there seems to be little independent evidence available to us to support his strange fixation.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote