Intellectual self-abasement

A History of Christianity by Paul Johnson, page 156.

It can be argued that, in the long run, civilization has benefited from the intellectual self-abasement of [the eight and ninth] centuries. Much of the ancient world survived because of the intense reverence of a handful of men for the literary relics of the past. Monks put the preservation of the surviving texts above their own lives, and regarded their reproduction as infinitely more important than their own creative labours. . . . The monks argued that the more copies they succeeded in making, the more likely it was that one at least would survive; and they were right. In the eighth century, the scriptorium of St. Martin of Tours transcribed a fifth century Livy; the copy survived, the original is lost.