[140] Thus apt indeed are these words of Moses, the holiest of men, when he tells us that the earth was being corrupted at the time when the virtues of just Noah shone forth. But he goes on, “it was destroyed because all flesh destroyed his way upon the earth” (Gen. 6:12).
[141] Some will think that we have here a mistake in diction and that the correct phrase in grammatical sequence is as follows, “all flesh destroyed its way.” For a masculine form like “his” (αὐτοῦ) cannot be properly used with reference to the feminine noun “flesh” (σάρξ).
[142] But perhaps the writer is not speaking merely of the flesh which corrupts its own way, thus giving reasonable grounds for the idea of a grammatical error, but of two things, the flesh which is being corrupted, and Another, whose way that flesh seeks to mar and corrupt. And so the passage must be explained thus, “all flesh destroyed the perfect way of the Eternal and Indestructible, the way which leads to God.”
[143] This way, you must know, is wisdom. For wisdom is a straight high road, and it is when the mind’s course is guided along that road that it reaches the goal which is the recognition and knowledge of God. Every comrade of the flesh hates and rejects this path and seeks to corrupt it. For there are no two things so utterly opposed as knowledge and pleasure of the flesh.
[144] Thus those who are members of that race endowed with vision, which is called Israel, when they wish to journey along that royal road, find their way contested by Edom the earthly one—for such is the interpretation of his name—who, all alert and prepared at every point, threatens to bar them from the road and to render it such that none at all shall tread or travel on it.