The Beginning Of All Exegesis is Love

Excerpts from “Augustine, Elements of Christianity”
by James J. O'Donnell

Christianity is a religion of the book, but the book did not spring out of a vacuum: hence the first book of [Augustine's] Christian Doctrine. The authority of the believing community precedes and guarantees the authority of the book. Thus the Christian student of scripture brings certain first principles along to the study of the book. The text itself, like the church, is only an instrument of divine authority. For both church and scripture the active agent of revelation is God, working through Christ, the Word.

The beginning of all exegesis is love of God and love of neighbor. "Whoever thinks he understands divine scripture or any part of it, but whose interpretation does not build up the twofold love of God and neighbor, has not really understood it. Whoever has drawn from scripture an interpretation that does fortify this love, but who is later proven not to have found the meaning intended by the author of the passage, is deceived to be sure, but not in a harmful way, and he is guilty of no untruth at all." (1.36.40)

Hence church doctrine makes it clear that all scripture will contain the praise of this double love (caritas) and the condemnation of all that is contrary to it--and nothing else. Here a special quality of a scriptural text is seen: in addition to whatever the initial writer meant to put into a text, there is also, always and everywhere, this deeper divine message. What is important, then, is that this deeper message be uncovered. This approach imputes a fundamentally instrumental quality to scriptural texts: God works on the individual soul through scripture, and however God works is good. Having a correct opinion about the meaning of an obscure word in scripture is a good thing, but ultimately irrelevant; but having a correct opinion about the need to love God and reform one's life is not only a good thing, but ultimately the only thing to be expected from scripture.

If love of God and of neighbor is the goal of interpretation, the enemy of interpretation is whatever does not allow that love to grow. The root of all lovelessness is the self-assertiveness of pride. The one who sets himself up as an authoritative interpreter of scripture in opposition to the reasonable suggestions of colleagues or the benign direction of the church goes far astray, even if he does uncover much arcane and accurate lore in the process. Not only is caritas the goal of interpretation, it is also the only reliable means of interpretation.

This is obviously a counsel of perfection. Augustine knew that all are sinners and all interpretations of scripture are imperfect, and he wanted to make sure the student of scripture knew it. All interpretation is tentative and incomplete; all the more reason why the only question that means anything is the one that asks whether the Word of God is acting in the reader's soul right now.