Truth Unites - When Did the Papacy Begin? (Response to Joe Heschmeyer)

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

Gavin Ortlund responds to Joe Heschmeyer’s accusation that he altered the Didache, explaining why his interpretation reflects the overwhelming scholarly consensus.Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth.Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/X: https://x.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

Joe Hesheimer's response to my video on the papacy led to lots of comments like these. Joe, I appreciate you calling Gavin out for altering the text from the didache. This wasn't an accident. He left it out on purpose. He's being deceptive. Accidents can only happen so many times. Ortland cutting off sentences to hide evidence for Catholicism is nothing new. He does this all the time.

Gavin's quote-minding is tiring. References to how this is either extremely sloppy scholarship or intellectually dishonest. lots of other quotes like these or comments like these, and these are the most liked comments under the video. So this is like widespread comment reaction to the video. Well, what leads to all these comments? I was out of town, back in town catching up on things, haven't watched Trent's video yet since I read the initial transcript. I'll try to watch that one next. I want to interact with Joe's here. Let's see what leads to this. Okay, Joe's argue, he's responding to my video on the papacy, but he's specifically focusing on, is there a single bishop in Rome in early on, like in the

first century, for example. And the first thing he covers is the didake. He makes the claim I'm altering the text. Now, listen to how he characterizes this. The only proof offered in his video is the line, appoint for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord from chapter 15. Now, the text is presented on screen as the end of a sentence, ending with a period. But if you check his source, you'll see that that's simply not true. The line has been altered. And I want to be clear, I'm not saying he did this on purpose. This happens easily enough accidentally. But it's important to know there It's been a really important alteration here. When you go back and read, you'll see that it's only part of a sentence that goes on to say

that bishops and deacons rendered to you the service of prophets and teachers. And then the next sentence says, despise them not therefore, for they are your honored ones together with the prophets and teachers. So in the unaltered version of the passage Gavin cites, four roles are mentioned, not two. Bishops, deacons, prophets, and teachers. Somehow, those last two got deleted in Gavin's version and the comma, was replaced with a period. So it lets him say that the Diddicate teaches that there's only those two bishops and deacons. But the evidence really does say otherwise. So you can obviously see how

people are watching the video are going to get the kinds of impressions I've just documented, which they in fact did get. What Joe doesn't mention here is that this is pretty much the standard view of the Didacay as supporting two offices in the church. It's not universal, but it's by far the majority view. It's not even close to see that the apostles, prophets, and teachers are itinerate, and or charismatic and or more general ministries among churches, whereas the bishops and deacons are the elected offices presiding over local congregations. And there are multiple reasons for that. The biggest one is just very clear in the text. It's these two offices that are appointed by the local churches. I put the Greek verb there in red so you can see it. Further, these offices themselves

can render to you the service of prophets and teachers, which makes it seems like those roles are not distinct offices. And then elsewhere in the didache, these other roles like a prophet and apostle, are explicitly itinerant. That means traveling. So you can see on the screen, warnings against them remaining in one place for three days and this kind of thing. So this is pretty simple. You have two offices that are presiding over local churches, and you have these other kinds of roles as well. That's not in the least bit surprising because, of course, elected officers in the church are not the only forms of ministry that happen. You know, just like in the New Testament, you have spiritual gifts, for example. So you have prophets all over the New Testament, but most people

don't think that that's a separate office alongside like Presbyter and Deacon and so forth. Hence my quick reference to this two-office view in the didache in my papacy video, which I've unpacked and argued for at greater length elsewhere. And this is this pretty standard scholarly view going back to Adolf von Harnack and J.B. Lightfoot and Philip Schaff, these older modern scholars who kind of set the table, laid foundations for a lot of church history scholarship. Here's Schaff, quote, the didache knows only bishops and deacons as local officers, the former being identical with the presbyters. Or you can go online and read Adolf von Harnax, the mission and expansion of Christianity in the first three centuries. You get to chapter one. It's about the missionaries,

and you can read him, I'll just read this, but who are these who speak the word of God in the didache, not permanent elected officials of an individual church, but primarily independent teachers who ascribe their calling to a divine command or charism. Then he mentions apostles, prophets, and teachers, and says these were not elected by the churches, as were bishops and deacons alone. That view remains extremely common up into the contemporary scholarship. Here's, for example, a commentary on the didacay discussing these two different kinds of offices. or, excuse me, two different kinds of roles, the offices or office holders or officials that the local communities choose from within their own ranks, and then the itinerant charismatic type

ministries. Here's another doctoral dissertation on the didarchy that contrasts two groups of leaders in the text. The prophets and teachers who are itinerate, and then the overseers and deacons who are elected and non-itinerate. The same dissertation references the overseers and deacons of the didache as the local clergy of particular communities, which you can see on screen there. I could cite scholarly resource after scholarly resource on this, who agrees with this view, the didache has two offices in the church, and yet when I simply say what most people believe, it gets spun as though I'm quote unquote altering the text. I'm not altering the text. I just quoted the relevant portion. Let me put up the passage again with colors.

The reason I didn't include the green section is because it's not relevant to my point. It's talking about the qualifications for these two offices, not how many offices there are. And I didn't include the purple section because it's also not relevant. It's talking about other roles in the churches beyond the appointed officers. The red section is the one that I quoted because that's the part of the text that's relevant to the point that I'm making. It's perfectly fine to quote the portion of a text that's relevant to your point. So, for example, if you quoted John 316 because you wanted to make a point about God's love and eternal life, and then someone wants to come along and say you're quote-mining the gospel of John,

or maybe you're altering the text or something like this because you didn't quote John 317 and 318 and the other themes that are also present in the text, like about condemnation for those who don't believe, you'd probably just say, well, I'm quoting the one verse to make the point that I wanted to make. That's not dishonest or deceptive or quote-mining or altering the text or anything like that. When Paul quotes Habakkuk 2-4, in Romans 117, no one would say he's quote-mining Habakkuk, even though he just plucks out one little small part of the verse. Or in Romans 12, when he quotes from Deuteronomy 32, vengeance his mind, declares the Lord, no one would say, ah, but there's a comma there originally, and you added a period,

and therefore you're altering the text or something like that. That's just how quotations work. You can quote one part of a passage that's relevant to your point. Now, Joe would be welcome to make an argument for what is the minority view and say, no, the prophets and teachers and offices and apostles, excuse me, are offices in the church. There are some people who hold that view, though it's, that's just a matter of interpretation, not a matter of textual integrity, and he should probably let people know that he's arguing against the majority position at that point. There are some scholars who take this view that sometimes you'll get the idea that there's like a transition going on at this time around when the didache is written from some. some offices to others. The single and only scholarly resource that Joe cited and put on screen itself mentions some of the features of this view. So if you look at the very next sentence

after the one he highlighted, it references von Harnack's view and the possibility of a transition from the traveling apostles, prophets, and teachers to the non-itinerate bishops and deacons. So even there, you see that distinction. So why is Joe giving his viewers the impression that I'm misrepresenting the text when I'm actually just repeating a totally commonplace interpretation, that there are two offices in the didache is what most scholars think, and it's not even close. I find this happens a lot to me, and it's kind of amusing, where I'll say something utterly uncontroversial and standard. It happens a lot from the Eastern Orthodox as well. I'll just say something that almost everybody in the field agrees with, and then it'll be drudged up as though

I'm doing something suspicious, and people will try to poke holes, and, ah, see, he's manipulating the data, and so forth, and I'm like, you know, I'll just go back and I'll just like quote Richard Price, who says the exact same thing, and I'll say, okay, so is he being dishonest as well? What about these other seven scholars who say the same thing? Are they all, you know, the scholarship is not infallible. The scholarship can all be wrong, but it's unlikely that a bunch of people are all being dishonest together or something like that. And so it's funny that this comes up. This never comes up in my actual academic work. My scholarly writings in church history go through blind peer review process at competitive journals and competitive presses, and never once has a concern

about quote mining or anything like that come up, but it comes up online. Now, the reason this matters is not just because it falsely leads people to think I'm being dishonest, but because it leads them away from the truth about this topic. Now, just think about this. The topic at hand in debate is the papacy. Joe is supposedly trying to argue for a single bishop in Rome. That's how he framed his video. The problem here is that even if you went with the minority view on the didache and said it's four or five offices or something like that, it has absolutely nothing to do either which way with a single bishop in Rome or a single bishop anywhere. So I just put up the passage again, and it's like either there's two offices, that's the majority view that I take, or there's four

offices or maybe five, that's a minority view that Joe seems to favor perhaps, I don't know exactly, but in neither case do you have a single bishop? Rather, the congregation is electing its own bishops, plural, and deacons. Little variation in how that's taken, but honestly, the commonplace view as I'll document is that the didache represents a time in church history prior to the rise of a single monarchical bishop. So it would be one thing if the didachae said something like appoint bishops and deacons and remember the chair of Peter, or appoint bishops and deacons. Or appoint bishops and deacons, and submit to the successor of Peter. Then Joe would have a point about altering the tax or quote mining or something like that,

because then the non-quoted text would actually be relevant to the debate. But the didarchy doesn't say that. What it says is entirely supportive of more Protestant models of church government, and that's how it's generally taken. Quote, the didache still represents a collective leadership, a stage preceding the process of increasing subordination to the authority of the monarchical bishop as the exclusive leader of a Christian community. That quote is pretty representative of how most people take the didache,

including most Roman Catholic scholars. Here is Francis Sullivan, who's a Roman Catholic scholar. The didache does not mention presbyters, but it has episcopus in the plural. For that reason, the word is best translated as overseers, as there is no indication that the local church of the didache was led by a single bishop. Include the larger sentence there, so no one will accuse me of quote mining, Sullivan. All these quotes, you can look them up, and I'm not taking things out of context.

Sullivan also maintains that hardly any scholars doubt that the Church of Rome was still led by a group of presbyters for at least a part of the second century. Again, this is a Roman Catholic scholar, summarizing what most scholars believe about early church government. There's a few exceptions, but the exceptions and arguments are usually about the details, usually not the big picture. Here's Raymond Brown, another Roman Catholic scholar, in the mid-second century, if that is when the Shepherd of Hermes is written, the Roman Church seems still to be ruled by a presbyterate. The reason I go into this is to show, even if I, with these Roman Catholic scholars are all wrong, fine, make that argument.

But it's unlikely that the Roman Catholic scholars are going to be lying, deceptive, and quote-minding against their own church. the didache is one of the texts that leads people to this conclusion that you've got initially two offices and a plurality of leadership in each local church so it's really problematic if you're trying to argue for a single bishop in rome and then you get to the didarchy and you never address the issue of a single bishop in rome you know it's like what is the point of even bringing up the prophets and teachers and this kind of thing um it's not really relevant to the debate it's just you know fine either which way four offices two offices either way You don't have a single bishop in Rome or anywhere in the didache.

That's just not something that is in the text. Unfortunately, this tendency to spin my words has now become a habit in Joe's rebuttals of me. He does a lot of rebuttals of me. This happened several times in his last rebuttal. He was supposed to be summarizing my view, and I was really surprised to hear him say this. They would probably convert within 12 hours if they met us today. You know, met all of the evangelicals and non-denominationals and Baptists. Then they would, within a day, probably they would just become Protestant.

Now, I don't think that is a faithful reading of Augustine, putting the cards on the table. I don't think that is a good reading of Augustinian thought. I think that trivializes his thinking and the thinking of the other great church fathers. Now, this whole idea, I was putting into the comments. You know, I try not to, like, be argumentative or get too worried about, like, a particular back and forth, try to just focus on the onlookers who don't care who's right and wrong and they're just seeking the truth. But sometimes when someone is, like, basically sort of disparate. you and leading people to think you're like dishonest or something like that, it's okay to just

point out for people what is going on. That is blatantly jamming words in my mouth. You heard him just say he's trying to summarize my view, supposedly. The idea of becoming Protestant within 12 hours is, I've never even imagined such a thing. I was making a very simple point that we need to be cautious about claiming certainty about what the church fathers would believe if they were transported to our own day because context influences our beliefs. So I typed out the transcript, just to make this clear, it's very objectively clear, that changing is a different thing from becoming Protestant. So I put out in a comment there, the transcript of what I actually said, and then his summary, and I keep pointing this out,

and unfortunately, even this very simple point, will not. not be conceded. So I finally just have to sign off by saying, look, you claimed that I said X. I didn't say X. This is a matter of reading words. And if you can't concede that, we're at an impasse. I'm really surprised, because I'll keep pointing out, Joe, you're not summarizing people's words accurately. It's not like a matter of interpretation. You're just saying they said something they, in fact, did not say. And you'd think that when that happens enough, he would grow more careful not to do that. but it's consistent, and this kind of misrepresentation has become a pattern in Joe's responses, and it distracts us from the actual historical issues. So zooming out and seeing the bigger picture here

to close with. The question at hand is, when does the papacy begin? Okay, is this office from God? I'm making my case that this office is not from God. I really have no doubt about that. I think the evidence is pretty overwhelming, that this is a slow, evolution in church history. It's just slowly coming about way after the period of divine public revolution is over. It doesn't go back authentically to the first century. It's not divinely instituted by Jesus. It would not be recognized by the apostles. It's way later after that. I get the impression that when I put out videos on this topic, people are getting upset and feeling like, you know, you're attacking Catholics and so on and so forth. I love Catholics. God bless you.

I'm not against you personally, but we're allowed to point out the lack of evidence for this claim because of how much is at stake. If it's true that the Bishop of Rome is the pastor of the entire church and can speak infallibly, it is not wrong for us to ask for evidence. But from the time in question, the first century, when this office was allegedly instituted, not only is there no evidence of a bishop in Rome who's the pastor of the whole church and who can speak infallibly, there's simply no evidence for a single bishop in Rome of any kind. And so when the didache comes up, that's why we find ourselves quibbling about, you know, a little bit of extra context that's talking about prophets and apostles and teachers, which is still just completely irrelevant to the papacy. Because there's nothing in the text of the didache that would even be in the ballpark of something

that could be spun into an argument for the papacy. All of the first century evidence, opposes such a claim. Again, that's why the Roman Catholic scholars are honest. If you read someone like Raymond Brown, he'll say, you can defend the Episcopet as a divinely guided development during the early periods of church history, not something goes back to the beginning. That's a much more reasonable way to argue for it, I think.

So, bottom line, as Protestants, we are allowed to follow what the historical evidence presents as true. We want to follow the offices that were actually set up by God, not those that slowly evolved way after the fact. And if we look at the evidence from the time, all the evidence, what people try to do is they try to read later developments back into the time in question. Look, we're allowed to point out that when the papacy was supposedly instituted, that time period actually doesn't have any evidence for that claim. It's not like it's slightly tilted against it. It's, it's slightly tilted against it, that there's zero. There's not even the idea of a single bishop in Rome that you're going to find anywhere in the first century evidence. Imagine if you, like when you're arguing for the resurrection of

Jesus, when you're doing apologetics, you're able to appeal to incredible historical testimony, like within very soon after the time in question, independent attestation. So you're able to build a strong argument. The papacy is kind of the opposite end of the spectrum. All the evidence comes way later. But when you look back at the evidence from the time and question, it's just not there. So that's the issue I want people to wrestle with. That's what I want people to struggle with. If people are trying to decide, should I be Catholic or should I be Protestant, you need to make up your mind about something like the papacy, and you need to look at the evidence. And I would say, it's fair for us to point out that in things like the New Testament or the didache

or the first epistle of Clement, and actually going on for a little while after that, you don't see what Vatican One claims we should expect to see. A single bishop in Rome, who's the pastor of the whole church, that just doesn't exist at that time in history. So we're allowed to point that out, and when we give entirely standard summaries of the scholarly positions on various points of data, it's rather unhelpful for people to try to spin that as though we're being deceptive or dishonest.