Archaeologists Find Luther’s Commode
October 22, 2004
German Archaeologists claim to have found the crapper on which a contemplative and constipated Martin Luther may have sat when he had his famous “breakthrough” about salvation. This event preceded the infamous 95 Theses, although contemporary scholarship tends to cast a dubious eye on both stories, as they were retrospectively reconstructed by Luther, his friends, and subsequent scholars. But there is nothing like a good yarn, and in any event, as theologian Martin Treu told the BBC, “there can be little doubt the toilet was used by Luther.” The BBC is a tad more tendentious when they report that Luther was a “radical theologian who argued for a more ‘earthy Christianity,’ which regarded the entire human body–and not just the soul–as God’s creation.” To their credit, however, they did ponder what the Wittenberger was wiping with:Luther left a candid catalogue of his battle with constipation but despite this wealth of information, certain key details remain obscure - such as what the great reformer may have used in place of toilet paper. “We still don’t know what was used for wiping in those days,” says Dr Treu. The paper of the time, he says, would have been too expensive and critically, “too stiff” for the purpose.
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