For both common reason and the teaching of the Scriptures show that it is impossible for anyone who has not thoroughly washed away every stain arising from evil to enter the divine company. This, though small in itself, becomes the beginning and foundation of great blessings. I call it small because of the ease with which it is accomplished.
For what difficulty is there in this: to believe that God is everywhere, and that, being in all things, He is also present with those who invoke His life-giving power, and that, being present, He does what is proper to Him? What properly belongs to divine activity is the salvation of those who need it, and this becomes effective through cleansing in water. The one who has been cleansed will participate in purity, and what is truly pure is divinity itself.
You see, then, how small and easy the beginning is: faith and water. The one lies within our moral choice; the other is a companion of human life. But how great, and of what kind, is the good that springs from these: to have kinship with the divine itself.