The writings of Bede bear witness to the extent of his learning. He himself gives a list of forty-five works of which he was the author, including, besides his homilies and commentaries on Holy Scripture, treatises on grammar, astronomy, the logic of Aristotle, music, geography, arithmetic, orthography, versification, the computum, and natural philosophy. His Ecclesiastical History and Lives of the Fathers must always be admired as models of unaffected simplicity of style. He was well skilled in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues.[55] His Greek erudition is proved by the fact of his having translated the life of St. Athanasius out of Greek into Latin, and also by the Retractations, which, with characteristic candour, he published in his old age, to correct some errors into which he had fallen in his earlier commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles, and which he became aware of after meeting with a Greek manuscript of that portion of the Scriptures which varied from the Latin text. His treatises on grammar and versification betray an acquaintance with Latin literature which shows us that St. Bennet’s libraries must have been well stored with classics.[56] In his scientific views, he of course followed the generally received theories of the time in which he lived; though in some points he corrected the errors of former writers by the result of his own observations. “Bede’s works,” observes Mr. Turner, “are evidence that the establishment of the Teutonic nations on the ruins of the Roman Empire did not _barbarise_ knowledge. He collected and taught more natural truths than any Roman writer had yet accomplished; and his works display an advance, not a retrogression, in science.” Thus, he taught that the stars derived their light from the sun; that the true shape of the earth was globular,[57] to which he attributes the irregularity of our days and nights. He explains the ebb and flow of the tide, by the attractive power of the moon, and points out the error of supposing that all the waters of the ocean rise at the same moment, instancing observations which he has taken himself on different parts of the English coast in support of his statement. He shows that the sun is eclipsed by the intervention of the moon, and the moon by that of the earth. He also gives simple and intelligent explanations of various natural phenomena, such as the rainbow, and the formation of rain and hail. He had the good sense to condemn judicial astrology as equally false and pernicious, and applied his scientific knowledge to useful purposes, constructing tables to serve the place of a modern ephemeris.