To rob Peter to pay Paul
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"To rob Peter to pay Paul", or other versions that have developed over the centuries such as "to borrow from Peter to pay Paul", and "to unclothe Peter to clothe Paul", are allegories meaning to take from one person or thing to give to another, especially when it results in the elimination of one debt by incurring it upon another. There are many other variants and similar phrases in numerous languages. "Manoeuvring the Apostles", which has the same meaning, was derived from this expression. In patchwork, "Rob Peter to pay Paul" is an alternative name for the Drunkard's Path patchwork block.
The phrase dates back to at least 1380. It may have originated in Middle English as a collocation of common names – similar to Tom, Dick, and Harry, possibly reinforced by the alliteration. The phrase has also been understood as a reference to the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, though that may have come later. These two apostles, who are often depicted together in Christian art, are both commemorated on June29, the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, an important date in the calendar of saints in medieval England, where many churches were dedicated to the pair.
Later, a different explanation of the origin of the phrase arose in popular culture, connecting it a sequence of events in the mid-15th century, when the abbey church of Saint Peter, Westminster was deemed a cathedral by letters patent, but ten years later was absorbed into the diocese of London when the diocese of Westminster was dissolved, and a few years after that many of its assets were expropriated for repairs to Saint Paul's Cathedral.
"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. 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."