The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (book) - Parables of Our Lord

Parables of Our Lord

Like the Hymns for the Amusement of Children, Smart's The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ were designed to teach morals to the young. However, Smart believed that salvation would not require a strong intellectual understanding of the Bible. In order to fulfill this belief, Smart created his Parables by altering the original Biblical parables, in order to simplify them and help them "make sense", and followed up each parable with a short explanation. Although there are many alterations and additions, Smart stays true to his Biblical sources, or, at least, how they are translated in the Authorized Version once the language was modernized for an 18th-century audience.

Since the Parables were written with the aim of teaching, Todd Parker claims that the Parables, and the other religious works of Christopher Smart, are part of his final push for the "evangelization of London's reading public." Even if they were not spreading an "evangelical" message, the books were still intended to promote proper conduct. In addition to teaching Christianity, the parables are set up against the interpretations of Bible held by the Roman Catholic Church and against the Roman Church itself.

Most of the Parables come from traditional Christian Parables, but Smart extended the original interpretation of what a "parable" is to include any "parabolic discourse" that could convey Christian doctrine "through, or with the aid of, similes, metaphors, proverbs, and other indirect forms of expression." Christopher Smart is not alone in interpreting parables in this manner because the Old Testament tradition of parables "meant first of all a comparison of some kind, but... included a wide variety of metaphires, similitudes, riddles, mysteries and illustrations."