Fire Hidden as Water: Nehemias' Sacrifice and Baptism in the Holy Ghost and Fire
Old Testament: 2 Machabees 1:19-22
For when our fathers were led into Persia, the priests that then were worshippers of God took privately the fire from the altar, and hid it in a valley where there was a deep pit without water, and there they kept it safe, so that the place was unknown to all men. But when many years had passed, and it pleased God that Nehemias should be sent by the king of Persia, he sent some of the posterity of those priests that had hid it, to seek for the fire: and as they told us, they found no fire, but thick water. Then he bade them draw it up, and bring it to him: and the priest Nehemias commanded the sacrifices that were laid on, to be sprinkled with the same water, both the wood, and the things that were laid upon it. And when this was done, and the time came that the sun shone out, which before was in a cloud, there was a great fire kindled, so that all wondered.
Old Testament, also: Leviticus 6:13
This is the perpetual fire which shall never go out on the altar.
New Testament: Matthew 3:11; Acts 2:3
I indeed baptize you in the water unto penance, but he that shall come after me, is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear; he shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and fire. ... And there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them:
The connection
The fire on the altar was not lit by man. At the first sacrifice in the desert "a fire, coming forth from the Lord, devoured the holocaust" (Leviticus 9:24), and when Solomon dedicated the Temple "fire came down from heaven, and consumed the holocausts" (2 Paralipomenon 7:1). The Law commanded that it be kept: "This is the perpetual fire which shall never go out on the altar" (Leviticus 6:13). When the people were carried away into Persia, the priests hid that fire in a dry pit. After the Exile Nehemias sent for it and they found only thick water, yet when it was sprinkled on the sacrifice and the sun came out from the cloud, it blazed up. Nehemias named the place Nephthar, "which is interpreted purification" (2 Machabees 1:36). In the Jordan John promised water and fire together: "he shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and fire" (Matthew 3:11). At Pentecost the fire came down again, not on an altar of stone but on the disciples: "there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them" (Acts 2:3). St Ambrose reads Nehemias' altar in exactly this way. "That fire was a type of the Holy Spirit Who was to come down after the Lord's ascension, and forgive the sins of all", he writes, and goes straight on to Pentecost. The water that hid the fire is baptism: "fire became water and water called forth fire ... spiritual grace burns out our sins through fire, and through water cleanses them. For sin is washed away and it is burnt away." The Catechism calls the fire on Elias' sacrifice on Carmel, where water was poured on the altar first, a figure of the fire of the Holy Ghost, and joins it to John's promise of baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire (CCC 696).
Moral sense
Ambrose draws the lesson: "This fire is hidden in the time of captivity, during which sin reigns, but in the time of liberty it is brought forth. And though it is changed into the appearance of water, yet it preserves its nature as fire so as to consume the sacrifice." A soul in the captivity of sin may think the fire of its baptism has gone out. It is only hidden, like the fire in the dry pit, and it blazes up when the soul comes home. Ambrose says this happens "not in baptism alone but also in repentance", so the fire is given back in every good confession. And he tells the reader where to stand: "Thou art that victim. Contemplate in silence each single point. The breath of the Holy Spirit descends on thee, He seems to burn thee when He consumes thy sins."
Anagogical sense
The same fire comes again at the end. John's promise of the Holy Ghost and fire is followed at once by the other fire: "the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire" (Matthew 3:12). Ambrose joins them with St Paul: "The fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is" (1 Corinthians 3:13). The fire welcomed now, in baptism and penance, burns away sin and leaves the soul alive. On the last Day, when the sun comes out from the cloud and nothing is hidden, the soul that has already been through that fire will have nothing left in it to burn.
The Fathers
St Ambrose, On the Duties of the Clergy III.18: "But that fire was a type of the Holy Spirit Who was to come down after the Lord's ascension, and forgive the sins of all, and Who like fire inflames the mind and faithful heart." And: "This fire is hidden in the time of captivity, during which sin reigns, but in the time of liberty it is brought forth. And though it is changed into the appearance of water, yet it preserves its nature as fire so as to consume the sacrifice." And: "We know now that this is in truth the sacred fire which then, as a type of the future remission of sins, came down upon the sacrifice."
Warrant
Patristic. St Ambrose, On the Duties of the Clergy III.18, calls Nehemias' fire "a type of the Holy Spirit" and "a type of the future remission of sins", reads the fire turned to water as baptism, and in the same chapter joins it to the tongues of fire in Acts 2, to Elias on Carmel, and to the fire that tries every work. The New Testament does not cite 2 Machabees 1, so the grade rests on Ambrose. The Catechism makes the same move with the parallel fire on Carmel, calling it a figure of the Holy Ghost's fire (CCC 696). The passage is a letter from the Jews of Jerusalem quoting older records ("as they told us"), and the entry reads it as such. Checked in the Greek: 2 Machabees 1:36 explains Nephthar as katharismos, purification, the word of John 3:25, where John's disciples dispute "concerning purification" just as Jesus begins to baptise. The same letter (1:18) keeps the day of the fire together with the purification of the Temple, the feast of the Dedication that Christ kept in John 10:22. The lead was found in research Dunk asked for to fill the gaps in the site's chronology after the Exile; the link to Pentecost was his question, and the reading itself is St Ambrose's.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 696.
The verses
2 Machabees 1:19 · 2 Machabees 1:20 · 2 Machabees 1:21 · 2 Machabees 1:22 · Leviticus 6:13 · Matthew 3:11 · Acts 2:3
