To rob Peter to pay Paul

"To rob Peter to pay Paul",^[1] and similar variants that have developed over the centuries such as "to borrow from Peter to pay Paul", and "to unclothe Peter to clothe Paul",^[2][3] are English idioms meaning to take from one person to give to another, especially when it results in the elimination of one debt by incurring another.^[4] Similar phrases are found in many languages.^[5] "Manoeuvring the Apostles", which has the same meaning, was derived from this expression.^[6][7] In patchwork, "Rob Peter to pay Paul" is an alternative name for the Drunkard's Path patchwork block.^[8]

The phrase dates back to at least 1380.^[1] It may have originated in Middle English as a collocation of common names similar to Tom, Dick, and Harry,^[9] possibly reinforced by the alliteration.^[5] The phrase has also been understood as a reference to two of the (martyred) apostles, Saint Peter and Saint Paul, though that association may have come later.^[2][3] These two apostles were often depicted together in Christian art, both commemorated in the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (June 29; an important date in the calendar of saints in medieval England), and joint namesakes of many churches (the medieval English people were almost universally Christian).^[10][11]

Later, a myth regarding the origin of the phrase arose in English Folklore, connecting it to a sequence of events in the middle of the 15th century: the abbey church of Saint Peter, Westminster was deemed a cathedral by letters patent; ten years later it was absorbed into the diocese of London when the diocese of Westminster was dissolved; a few years after that, many of its assets were expropriated for repairs to Saint Paul's Cathedral.^[1][12]

"Robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul" is Rudyard Kipling's adaptation of the phrase, used to criticize the concepts of income redistribution and collectivism.^[13] Kipling included the expression in his poem "Gods of the Copybook Headings" and argued that it should be featured in "catechisms" of the Conservative Central Organization; the lesson of the phrase in his version and of the poem in general was that "only out of the savings of the thrifty can be made the wage-fund to set other men on the way to be prosperous."^[14]