The sigla and abbreviations used in the textual notes of the present commentary are generally those which appear in the apparatus criticus of NA. The stance adopted in this commentary is literary and theological, rather than simply critical and historical. The analytical work of earlier commentators, such as Peake (1919) and Charles, cannot be discarded; but recent research on the Apocalypse, represented for instance in the work of John Court (Revelation, 1994; ‘Reading the Book’ 164–67)