The English mathematician and philosopher A. N. Whitehead described the Western tradition as follows: ?The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.' By way of analogy, one could state without difficulty: The history of theology in the West consists of a series of footnotes to Augustine. This is how Wilhelm Geerlings describes the significance of Augustine in his pithy and short book on the theologian. Just as Whitehead?s statement was not meant to diminish the achievement of later philosophers, but rather aimed at underlining the fundamental significance of Plato, Geerlings did not intend to minimize the significance of post-Augustinian theology. Likewise, the title given to the collection of the most important articles of Wilhelm Geerlings (1941-2008), Footnotes to Augustine, is not meant to lessen the author?s contribution. It rather highlights the crucial significance of Augustine for the thought and scholarship of the theologian and historian Wilhelm Geerlings. To the general public, he is mainly known as the founder and editor of the Fontes Christiani, a series of new bilingual editions of ancient and medieval Christian sources, which, by the time of his death, comprised one hundred volumes. Furthermore, he was one of two editors of the "Lexikon der antiken christlichen Literatur". Languages : German, English.