Catholic Commentary
The Betrayal and Massacre of the Hasidaeans (Part 2)
18The fear and the dread of them fell upon all the people, for they said, “There is neither truth nor justice in them; for they have broken the covenant and the oath which they swore.”
In 1 Maccabees 7:18, the Jewish people respond to Alcimus and Bacchides' betrayal of the Hasidaeans with overwhelming fear and dread, recognizing that these leaders possess neither truth nor justice because they broke their sacred oaths and covenant promises. The verse marks the moral verdict that those wielding religious authority have severed themselves from divine character and trustworthiness.
When those wearing sacred office shatter their sworn word, they don't just wound individuals—they poison the entire community's capacity to believe in truth itself.
Typological and Spiritual Senses
The Hasidaeans—the hasidim, the "pious ones"—represent those who are zealous for the Law and willing to make peace on the basis of another's word. Their slaughter foreshadows, in the typological sense, the betrayal of the innocent, including ultimately the betrayal of Christ by Judas with a greeting of peace (Mt 26:48–49). The pattern is spiritually consistent: the enemy uses the gesture of covenant (kiss, oath, priestly assurance) as the instrument of destruction. The community's cry, "there is no truth in them," anticipates Christ's identification of Satan as "a liar and the father of lies" (Jn 8:44)—the one whose deepest weapon is the false covenant, the broken word.
The verse also operates on the ecclesiological level: when those who hold sacred office violate their oaths, it does not merely wound individuals—it fills "all the people" with fear and dread. Authority carries a communal weight, and its betrayal has communal consequences.
Catholic tradition brings particular depth to this verse through its rich theology of oaths, covenant, and the integrity of sacred speech. The Catechism teaches that an oath "calls on God as witness to what one affirms" and that "perjury is a grave offense against the Lord" because it implicitly makes God a guarantor of a lie (CCC 2150–2152). What Bacchides and Alcimus committed was precisely this: they summoned divine authority to underwrite treachery.
St. Augustine, in De Mendacio, argues that lying destroys the very instrument by which human beings communicate truth to one another, and that this destruction is especially catastrophic when the lie is embedded in a solemn promise. The betrayal in 1 Maccabees 7 is a concrete historical instance of what Augustine theorized: when sacred speech is weaponized, the entire social and spiritual order trembles.
The Church Fathers—particularly Origen and Chrysostom—read the Maccabean narratives as mirrors of spiritual warfare within the soul and the Church. The "Alcimus" figure, who holds priestly office but serves apostasy, is a type of the false teacher who uses religious authority to lead the faithful astray. St. Irenaeus warns extensively against those who "under the appearance of religion" deceive the simple (cf. Adversus Haereses I.pref.1).
The Second Vatican Council's Gaudium et Spes (§26) affirms that the common good requires that truth and justice be foundational to social life. The collapse described in 1 Maccabees 7:18—"there is neither truth nor justice"—is precisely the social dissolution that results when leaders abandon these pillars. Catholic Social Teaching thus reads this verse as a warning about the catastrophic spiritual and civic consequences of institutional betrayal.
Contemporary Catholics encounter broken oaths and violated trust not only in political life but within the Church herself—in crises of leadership, clerical betrayal, and institutional failure. This verse offers a clear-eyed scriptural model for naming such betrayal without descending into despair. The people of Israel did not pretend the treachery had not occurred; they named it with theological precision: "there is neither truth nor justice in them."
For the Catholic today, this passage invites several practical responses. First, a sobered realism: sacred office does not automatically sanctify the person who holds it, and discernment of leadership must include moral scrutiny. Second, a defense of oath-keeping in one's own life—in marriage vows, religious profession, legal oaths, and everyday promises. The Catechism's insistence that "a promise made to another should be kept in justice" (CCC 2410) is rooted in exactly this tradition. Third, this verse reminds Catholics that communal trauma from betrayal is real and spiritually serious—it is not weakness to be gripped by fear when sacred trust is shattered, but the community must ultimately anchor its hope not in human fidelity but in God's, who alone keeps covenant forever (Ps 89:28).
Commentary
1 Maccabees 7:18 — The Communal Response to Treachery
This single verse is the hinge between the brutal act narrated in verses 16–17 (the seizure and execution of sixty Hasidaeans who had accepted Alcimus's word of peace) and the broader military crisis that follows. Its power lies not in military strategy but in moral and theological diagnosis.
"The fear and the dread of them fell upon all the people"
The doubling of synonyms—fear and dread—is a Semitic literary device (hendiadys) used throughout the Hebrew Bible to denote overwhelming, existential terror. It echoes the language of theophany and holy war (cf. Deut 2:25; 11:25), but here the source of dread is not God's presence but human wickedness. This inversion is itself a moral statement: what should inspire awe is God's holiness; instead, the people tremble before the lawless violence of men who wear the garments of religious authority. Alcimus was a high priest; his betrayal is therefore not simply political treachery but a desecration of the very office meant to mediate between God and Israel.
"There is neither truth nor justice in them"
The Greek words rendered "truth" (alētheia) and "justice" (krisis or dikaiosynē in parallel traditions) are not abstract ideals but covenantal categories. In the Hebrew world behind the Greek text, emet (truth/faithfulness) and mishpat (justice/right order) are among the foundational attributes of God Himself (Ps 89:14; Micah 6:8). To say that Bacchides and Alcimus possess neither is to say they have severed themselves from the divine character. They are not merely untrustworthy men—they are anti-types of God. The people's lament functions as a theological verdict, not merely a political grievance.
"For they have broken the covenant and the oath which they swore"
Here the verse reaches its moral and theological core. The Hasidaeans had trusted Alcimus precisely because he was a priest of Aaronic lineage (1 Macc 7:14)—in his person, the covenant should have been embodied. The oath they swore was therefore doubly binding: it was a human promise and an invocation of divine witness. To break it was to commit perjury before God, to treat the divine name as an instrument of deception rather than a guarantor of truth. In Jewish moral theology, the breaking of a sworn oath (Hebrew: shevuat shav) was among the gravest sins, because it weaponized sacred speech.