William Baker thinks the roots of Eliot’s anti-Jewish views when young may have been shaped by such works as Defoe’s The Political History of the Devil. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. Yet later a total shift of perspective took place and she changed from an antipathy to Jewish culture to identifying the Jews with her highest hopes for humanity. ( Letters, I, 246–7) 1 (Eliot’s emphasis) Everything specifically Jewish is of a low grade. The very exhaltation of their idea of a national deity into a spiritual monotheism seems to have been borrowed from other oriental tribes. Their stock has produced a Moses and a Jesus, but Moses was impregnated with Egyptian philosophy and Jesus is venerated and adored by us only for that wherein he transcended or resisted Judaism. I bow to the supremacy of Hebrew poetry, but much of their early mythology and almost all of their history is utterly revolting. My Gentile nature kicks most resolutely against any assumption of superiority in the Jews, and is almost ready to echo Voltaire’s vituperation.
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