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NOTES ON THE TEXT

In editing this volume, I have sought to be far from heavy-handed in changing-or correct ing-the grammar used by individual authors or translators. I have deleted outmoded grammar (for example, the use of a comma immediately before a dash) at some points, and in those places where I did retain the use of archaic grammar, it was to preserve the historic feel of the written word. It is one thing to edit nineteenth- or twentieth-century translations of writings from the early church, after all, and quite another to edit the writings of pacifists in colonial Pennsylvania. In all cases, however, my changes are silent; they are not marked by the use of brackets or

[sic].

I have also tried to exercise great care when excerpting the selected pieces. Almost all of the writ ings here are shortened in some way, some of them quite liberally, and I have used ellipses to indicate where I have made deletions. Although ellipses sometimes break the flow of reading, I find them important for preserving the integrity of the piece as it was written or translated. Careful readers will note that this volume lacks notes that appeared in original documents. Simply stated, given my own self-imposed constraints of space, I deleted notes, all of them, so that I could include more selections. Had I included notes, this book would have ended up excluding pieces I consider essential for a peace reader like this one. On a similar note, I did not write my own notes to explicate material in the text. Nor have I relied on brackets to add information; if the reader comes across such use of brackets, it is because I have retained their use by a prior editor of a particular selection. The most difficult choices I faced centered on the selection of texts-which to include and exclude. The good news is that there were so many choices-far more than I originally thought-and that these choices came in many languages and from many cultures. The bad news, of course, is that I could not include them all. Even a cursory look at the table of contents will show that I have largely (but not solely) focused on the historic roots and expressions of Christian nonviolence in North America, especially as it took form in the twentieth century. This decision is in accord with-and reflects-not only my own base of knowledge but also the intended market and readership for the book. Readers will also quickly see that this volume includes pieces from authors who seem to accept violence at certain points or who may not even identify themselves as Christian. I will not take the fun away from those who want to struggle with discovering my particular reasons for selecting certain authors, but I will state this much: there is no author in this volume whose thought does not strongly emphasize-and extol-the virtues and practices of Christian peace and nonviolence.
l should add here that I did not rely on a tight definition of "Christian peace" or "Christian nonvio

lence" in the selection process, although I believe that it is possible (and often desirable) to provide tight definitions for both of those phrases. Finally, I chose to work on the overall project not only because I wanted to give my students easy

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