To the Editor:

I wish to point out that in my review of “No Passion Spent” by George Steiner in Midstream, to which Arthur Hertzberg refers in his review of the Everyman edition of the “The Old Testament” (Book Review, Jan. 5), I extol Steiner’s exquisite English style, his magisterial command of European literature, his brilliant ideas on translation and his extraordinary control of modern critical theories.

In the second part of my review--which concentrates on Steiner’s essay “Through The Glass Darkly”--I discerned a far darker pre-Vatican II Steinerian vision of Judaism’s rejection of Jesus and Christianity than Hertzberg would have us believe, from the uncritical way he presents Steiner’s arguments.

My criticism was actuated by Steiner’s unwillingness to let the reader know whether he was acting as Christianity’s representative or his own man. Steiner’s discourse on Judaism in “Through The Glass Darkly” is not merely an “unhappy” one, as Hertzberg would have us think; it is something far more disquieting.

Arnold Ages, Toronto

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Arthur Hertzberg replies:

Arnold Ages and I have read the same Steiner essay differently and reached different estimates of what he was trying to say. Readers may make up their own minds by reading Steiner for themselves. Obviously, I stand by my reading.