other · 45 · Caesarea Maritima
The Byzantine tradition makes Cornelius the first bishop of Caesarea, which is tidy: the centurion of the Italian Cohort, baptised in that city with his whole household, stays and leads the church there. Acts says nothing about it — once the argument about Gentile baptism is settled, Cornelius drops out of the book entirely and is mentioned only in retrospect, when Peter has to defend what he did. Eusebius, who cared a great deal about episcopal lists and lived at Caesarea himself, does not begin its succession with him. So the row is traditional and the tension is stated rather than smoothed: the tradition and the see's own records do not agree, and the see's own records are the better witness to who sat in its chair.
To keep the first Gentile convert in the city that converted him.
A bishopric the episcopal lists of Caesarea do not corroborate.