[Sidenote: _St._ Peter _how, or by whom, placed in the See of_ Rome.]
But to return to our Subject; it may be inquired, If St. _Peter_ was Bishop of _Rome_, who placed him in that See? Did our Lord appoint him? Did the Apostles name him? Did the People chuse him? Did he assume it himself? To these Queries no Answers have been yet given, but such as are so ridiculously weak, that it is not worth my while to relate them, nor the Reader’s to hear them. _Bellarmine_, in one Place, positively affirms, that _God commanded St_. Peter _to fix his See at_ Rome[62]; but elsewhere contents himself with saying, _It is not improbable that God commanded St._ Peter _to fix his See at_ Rome[63]. Is it is no more than not improbable, it is uncertain; it may be a mere Conjecture, a Dream.
[Sidenote: _Other Bishops of_ Rome _appointed by St._ Peter.]
St. _Peter_, either alone, or jointly with St. _Paul_, as we read in _Irenæus_, and in the Apostolical Constitutions[64], appointed other Bishops of _Rome_. Now, when he appointed others, did he resign his Episcopacy, or retain it? If he resigned it, he did not die Bishop of _Rome_; which shakes the very Foundation of the Pope’s Claim to Supremacy: if he retained it, there were Two Bishops on the same See at one time; which Pope _Innocent_ I. in his Epistle to the Clergy and People of _Constantinople_, condemned as an Irregularity never known till his Time[65]: he did not, it seems, recollect that it had been practised by his Predecessor Pope _Peter_. _Theodoret_ tells us, in his Ecclesiastical History, that when the Emperor _Constantius_ would have had _Felix_ to sit in the See of _Rome_, together with _Liberius_, upon the Return of the latter from Banishment, the People of _Rome_ would not content to it, crying out, _One God, one Christ, one Bishop_. _Felix_ died soon after, and upon his Death _Theodoret_ makes the following Remark: _It was_, says he, _a special Providence, that_ Peter_’s Throne might not suffer Infamy, being held by Two Prelates_[66]. He did not consider, or rather did not believe, that it had been held by St. _Peter_ and St. _Paul_, by St. _Pater_ and by _Linus_.
[Sidenote: _St._ Peter _Bishop at_ Rome, _not of_ Rome.]