Per Caritatem

As I have highlighted on numerous occasions on this blog, St. Augustine is perfectly content with the idea that Scripture has multiple true meanings and that these meanings can and do go beyond the mind of the human writers of Scripture (cf. Confessions XII and Augustine’s discussions on the possible true meanings of Gen 1:1).  If this is the case, then the question naturally arises as to how one is to discern which meanings are legitimate and which are illegitimate. In my reading of Augustine, my impression is that he does not attempt to lay out hard and fast hermeneutical rules, which when applied properly, always yield the correct interpretation-an approach that strikes me as radically modern.  Rather, he suggests loose principles that allow for the possibility of many new interpretations to arise over time and, which speak to the Church in a fresh way without genuinely contradicting former interpretations (at least that is the goal).  I recently came across the following passages from On Christian Doctrine that seem to me to suggest possible ways that Augustine might answer the question of which interpretations are valid and which are not (all the while still affirming the excess of meaning in Scripture).  What do you think and what would add?  I am of course not claiming to be exhaustive here and realize that tradition plays a signifanct role for Augustine–I am simply attempting to get the conversation started. 

1. The principle of charity. If Scripture is properly understood, it will always lead to love of God and love of neighbor. In book III of On Christian Doctrine, Augustine writes, “scripture enjoins nothing but love, and censures nothing but lust, and moulds men’s minds accordingly. [...] By love I mean the impulse of one’s mind to enjoy God on his own account and to enjoy oneself and one’s neighbour on account of God; and by lust I mean the impulse of one’s mind to enjoy oneself and one’s neighbour and any corporeal thing not on account of God” (III.36-38, p. 76, trans. by R.P.H. Green, Oxford Univ. Press).
2. Multiple meanings are a gift. “Could God have built into the divine eloquence a more generous or bountiful gift than the possibility of understanding the same words in several ways, all of them deriving confirmation from other no less divinely inspired passages?” (On Christian Doctrine, III.85-86, p. 87)
3. When equivocal meanings arise, the best practice is to allow Scripture to interpret Scripture. “When one unearths an equivocal meaning which cannot be verified by unequivocal support from the holy scriptures it remains for the meaning to be brought into the open by a process of reasoning, even if the writer whose words we are seeking to understand perhaps did not perceive it. But this practice is dangerous; it is much safer to operate within the divine scriptures. When we wish to examine passages made obscure by metaphorical expressions, the result should be something which is beyond dispute or which, if not beyond dispute, can be settled by finding and deploying corroboratory evidence from within scripture itself” (On Christian Doctrine III.86-86, p. 87).