"It was in the year of Christ, as we have seen, 95 or 96, and of Rome 848 or 849, that St. John had the visions of the Apocalypse revealed to him. The chronological eras in which I thus mark the date, -eras perhaps the most famous in history,- suggest to us the two kingdoms between which, from thenceforward, was to lie the visible contest for the supremacy of the world. Of the former kingdom the then living ruler and head was the Emperor Domitian, the last of the twelve Caesars; who was engaged at the time spoken of in a bitter persecution of the Christians in his empire: of the latter the most eminent member and director (for Head it knew none but the Lord Jesus) was the last and only survivor of Christ's twelve apostles, himself a sufferer in the persecution, the beloved disciple St. John." (From the Introduction).

Elliott's Commentary was practically the work of the lifetime of one of the most learned and laborious expositors of modern times. Like Gibbon's 'History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' to which it frequently refers, it stands alone in its sphere, as a monumental work of surpassing value. The ten thousand references it contains to ancient and modern works bearing on the subject elucidated greatly enhance its value.

We may safely say that during the half century which has elapsed since it publication, no other work on historic lines of interpretation has appeared of equal importance" (History Unveiling Prophecy or Time as an Interpreter, pp. 297-299, emphases added).

"Furthermore, in 1878, Charles Haddon Spurgeon wrote the classic reference work Commenting on Commentaries. The 'prince of preachers' surveyed over 1,400 commentaries on the books of the Bible providing bible students and pastors with a valuable guide for selecting books for their libraries. His comments are often as entertaining as they are helpful. Each book of the bible forms a chapter in this work.. Spurgeon provides pithy analysis and offers his recommendation of the best commentary and those to avoid. When he reaches the book of Revelation his clear recommendation is E.B. Elliott's Horae Apocalypticae. He succinctly states that it was "the standard work".

It would surprise most Baptists today to realize that this most eminent Baptist preacher was himself an Historicist or Continuist as he called it then. Elliott's work was the standard work in 1878 because the Historicist interpretation was still the standard in Protestantism and this work had gone through 4 editions and had established itself as the standard within the Historicist school. Elliot had died three years earlier in 1875" (from: http://www.historicist.com).