Lord, hou schulde God approve that you robbe Petur and gif is robbere to Poule in ye name of Crist?”

John Wycliffe, Selected English Works, c. 1380

In medieval England, the Christian Peter and Paul were two peas in a pod. They were both apostles and both martyred in Rome. They even shared the same feast day (June 29). So, the idea behind the phrase “robbing Peter to pay Paul” is that the victim and payee are similar in wisdom and stature (to borrow a phrase). The modern-day equivalent is taking a cash advance from one credit card to make the minimum payment on another one, assuming that they both have a similar interest rate. Read More