But this she will never do, as long as her audacity and cunning are left to hatch schemes to escape from the dilemma. Inspired by despair, she now claims that Peter means Rome when he says Babylon, and that the Marcus spoken of was not the son of Peter, but the nephew of Barnabas and companion of Paul! Just as well claim anything else, and say Babylon means Alexandria, and that Marcus was the stepson of Nero. Here two impressions are made: one that the letter was written at Babylon, and the other that Peter was attended by his son. Are both false? What did Peter, or anybody else, expect to gain by giving false impressions? By an agreement between Peter and Paul, made early and observed strictly, the labors of the former were limited to the circumcised, and he found them in large numbers in cities watered by the Euphrates. There and in Judea, among the Jewish people, was the scene of Peter's labors, and there he died. He had no business in Rome. As there was no church in Rome in A. D. 64, it is impossible, if Peter was there at the time, for him to make the salutation he does in his address to his countrymen. He could say, "the church that is at Babylon," but not "the church that is at Rome," for there was none.* * See Appendix B. Mark the son of Peter, and Mark the nephew of Barnabas, are two different persons, whom the genius of Irenæus seeks to confound. The epistle to Philemon was written in the latter part of A. D. 63, which shows that Paul, Timothy, and Mark were then in Rome. They left in the following spring. During the winter of A. D. 63, Paul wrote the Colossians that they might expect Mark to visit them, and it would seem that he had made arrangements with them of some kind in regard to him, when he arrived among them. "Marcus, sister's son to Barnabas (_touching whom ye received commandments_: if he come unto you, receive him.") Col. iv. 10. Unless Mark changed his mind afterwards, he went from Rome to Colosse in Phrygia. The next reliable information we have of Paul after the spring of A. D. 63, except at Nicopolis in A. D. 64, he is back in Rome in the fall of A. D. 65, and in prison; and the first knowledge we have of Mark, he is in some part of Asia Minor. Timothy and Mark were together, and Paul writes to the former from his prison, to come to Rome and to bring the latter with him, and to get there before the winter sets in; which request was complied with. To suppose that Mark had been to Rome in the mean time would be most unreasonable, and against all the probabilities in the case. There was nothing to take him there until Paul called him back. If Peter was in Rome when he wrote his first epistle, in A. D. 64, Mark the nephew of Barnabas was not with him. If Mark saw Peter at all in A. D. 64, it was not in Rome. Nor did he see him that year in Babylon in Egypt, or Babylon in Mesopotamia or Chaldea.