Augustine and our modern multiculturalism

Recently I have been reading one of the most famous translators in history: St. Augustine. As you may or may not know, he had somewhat of a theory regarding lingüistics and meaning and quite a profound love for the Christian God. His conversion was so meaningful to him that he actually reinterpreted platonic writers he had read under the light of Christianity. Hence, we still have doubts regarding how much Aristotle we know.
This made me think: what separates modern lingüists from that conception is the lack of a comprehensive meaning according to which everything is understood. Different cultures imprint different meanings to words. The question I ask myself is: can a translator really translate without knowing the culture for which the text is intended? And I'm not talking about technical translations, but texts where knowing the mindframe and the psychology of the language seems to be very relevant. Can we actually aprehend that by just reading about it?