Baptism and the events surrounding it provide important evidence for how early Christians dealt with sin as well as how they conceived of salvation. By the time of the Constantinian settlement, abundant resources were already available to Christians for the purposes of discussing sin and salvation in terms of baptism. Origen had long since remarked that 'those who have been regenerated through divine baptism are established in paradise, that is, in the church, to do the spiritual deeds that are within'. One major function of the Eastern Christians was to ensure that the deeply personal encounter with God through baptism became more than deeply personal, became in fact the point at which the Christian entered a new, sacramental, community. Thanks to the renewal brought about by baptism, this new community was characterised as a return to paradise in that the waters of baptism washed away all sins, collective and private, that had previously separated God's creatures from God.