deposit "of the faith" against all the depredations of heresy which "when the sacred college of apostles had suffered death in various forms, and the generation of those that had been deemed worthy to hear the inspired wisdom with their own ears had passed away ... attempted thenceforth with a bold face, to proclaim, in opposition to the preaching of the truth, 'the knowledge which is falsely so-called ([Greek: pseudônymos gnôsis]).'" For an appeal like that of our epistle to the authority of the past against the moral laxity and antinomian teaching of degenerate Pauline churches in the Greek world, the natural resort after Paul himself (Pastoral Epp.) would be the "kindred of the Lord" who were the "leaders and witnesses in every church" in Palestine. Doubtless the framer of Jude 1 would have preferred the aegis of "James the Lord's brother," if this, like that of Paul, had not been already appropriated. Failing this, the next most imposing was "Judas, the brother of James." The superscription in the case of Jude, unlike that of James, takes hold of the substance of the book. Verse 3 and the farewell (v. 24 seq.) show that Jude was composed from the start as an "epistle." If this appearance be not fallacious, the obvious relation between the two superscriptions will be best explained by the supposition that the author of Jude gave currency to the existing homily (James) before composing under the pseudonym of Jude. On the interconnexion of the two see Sieffert, _s.v._ "Judasbrief" in Hauck, _Realencykl._ vol. ix. Judas is conceived as cherishing the intention of discussing for the benefit of the Christian world (for no mere local church is addressed) the subject of "our common salvation" (the much desiderated authoritative definition of the orthodox faith), but diverted from this purpose by the growth of heresy.