understood the Hebrew text to indicate the intention of the sacred writer as meaning that the Serpent was subtil, if you like, but with an intelligent, thinking, and reasoning subtility. Otherwise they would not have used the word φρονιμώτατος. The Ancient Arabic Version, too, uses the word hakmimunh, which signifies “wisest.” In the Greek and the Arabic, the expression is in the superlative degree. In the Hebrew language, which has no superlative form for the adjective, the superlative sense is