The understanding of the gospel parables in pre- revolutionary biblical scholarship

The article provides an overview of the views of Russian pre-revolutionary biblical scholars on the Gospel parables. The first to study the Gospel parables was Archbishop Sylvester (Lebedinsky), who was one of the first to raise in Russian biblical studies the question of the context of understanding a parable. His approach corresponded to his time. He understood by a parable an allegory that obscures direct speech by the elegance of the image, which has the function of enhancing the impact on the listener. Bishop Vitaly (Grechulevich) was of the same opinion. N. Vinogradov tried to apply the scientific knowledge of his time to the study of parables, but an analysis of his views on parables showed that his work is a mechanical combination of various opinions drawn from the various literature he had studied. The study showed that the Westernist approach was of little use in the tradition of Russian biblical studies to the inflow material in an attempt to synthesize it with the Orthodox dogmatic system. Despite the apparent expansion of the horizons of graduates of theological academies of the late nineteenth century. It can be argued that the essay created in the spirit of the times by Archbishop Sylvester is a much more fundamental, independent and consistent work dedicated to the Gospel parable, rather than subsequent ones.