I just heard somebody use that phrase on a tv commercial, for debt consolidation or some such. One of the two balding lawyers said, “Are you robbing Peter to pay Paul?”

It’s one of those things I’ve heard plenty of times before, but started wondering about its origin. I figured it was some kind of reference to Christianity, since Peter and Paul were both early Church patriarchs. I thought maybe it went back to some kind of early struggle for dominance within the religion.

A little research online, though, yielded indications that it’s origin was a bit more recent.

Many folks believe that metaphor—which alludes to the practice of taking from one entity in order to satisfy another—has its origin in 16th-century England, when part of the estate of Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Westminster was appropriated to pay for repairs to Saint Paul’s in London. That same century saw robbing Peter to pay Paul recorded in John Heywood’s collected Proverbs, and François Rabelais making use of the phrase when he wrote, “By robbing Peter he paid Paul, . . . and hoped to catch larks if ever the heavens should fall.”

But as neat and satisfying as it would be to trace the phrase back to an actual event, the truth won’t stretch that far. It turns out robbing Peter to pay Paul was used at least as far back as the 14th century, when theologian John Wycliff asked, “How should God approve that you rob Peter, and give this robbery to Paul in the name of Christ?”

Of course, that second paragraph kind of throws the whole thing back into question. And I’m left wondering if it does in fact go back even farther, perhaps towards Paul’s influence within early Christianity.