To rob Peter to pay Paul

Contents

"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]

References

  1. 1.[1.2][1.3]Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham (2001). Wordsworth Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Wordsworth Editions. p. 923. ISBN 978-18-402-2310-1.
  2. 2.[2.2]Cresswell, Julia (2010). Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins. Oxford University Press. p. 370. ISBN 978-01-995-4793-7.
  3. 3.[3.2]Ayto, John (2010). Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms. Oxford University Press. p. 293. ISBN 978-01-995-4378-6.
  4. 4.Stevenson, Angus (2010). Oxford Dictionary of English. Oxford University Press. p. 1536. ISBN 978-01-995-7112-3.
  5. 5.[5.2]Marvin, Dwight Edwards (1922). The Antiquity of Proverbs: Fifty Familiar Proverbs and Folk Sayings with Annotations and Lists of Connected Forms, Found in All Parts of the World. G. P. Putnam's Sons. pp. 287–289.
  6. 6.Farmer, John Stephen (1890). Slang and Its Analogues. pp. 61.
  7. 7.Nash, Jay Robert (1992). Dictionary of Crime: Criminal Justice, Criminology, and Law Enforcement. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 230. ISBN 978-15-907-7531-8.
  8. 8.Cory, Pepper (1998). 65 Drunkard's Path Quilt Designs. Courier. p. 8. ISBN 978-04-864-0046-4.
  9. 9.Weekley, Ernest (2012). An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English. Courier. pp. 1077–1078. ISBN 978-04-861-2286-1.
  10. 10.Martin, Gary. "The meaning and origin of the expression: Rob Peter to pay Paul". The Phrase Finder. Retrieved January 18, 2017.
  11. 11."rob Peter to pay Paul meaning". The Idioms Dictionary. Retrieved February 25, 2022.
  12. 12.Dixon, James Main (1891). Dictionary of Idiomatic English Phrases. T. Nelson and Sons. p. 272.
  13. 13.Greenleaf, W. H. (2003). The British Political Tradition. Vol. 1: The Rise of Collectivism. Routledge. p. 216. ISBN 0-415-30300-1.
  14. 14.Kipling, Rudyard; Pinney, Thomas (2004). The Letters of Rudyard Kipling. Vol. 6: 1931–36. University of Iowa Press. p. 55. ISBN 0-87745-899-5.