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 THE SCALE MODEL

The Scale Model does one thing: makes it easy for business owners and entrepreneurs
to grow their businesses. Using a proven methodology that is easy to understand
and implement, business teams can learn how to diagnose and solve barriers to
growth.
The Scale Model equips CEOs and leadership teams with a framework to assess
where the pain points lie in their business, and easy-to-use templates to help
them work out the solutions to enable growth. The Model has been used by high-
growth companies around the world to achieve industry-beating growth in sales
and profits, with engaged and aligned teams. In a complicated business environ-
ment, the straightforward advice and practical structure of the Scale Model pro-
vides clarity for business planning.
When you’re busy running your business, you want just one place to go to fix
it. This is that place. Pick up The Scale Model today, work through the tools inside, and
watch your business grow. That’s how easy it is.

Andy Clayton is an award-winning entrepreneur, having founded four compa-

nies: one failed, one sold, and two going strong. Andy has a skill for identifying
and clarifying key concepts that has helped him to succeed as a business teacher
and author. Andy is an autistic entrepreneur, a passionate sportsman, and sup-
porter of climate change causes.
 THE SCALE MODEL

How to Set Up and Run a

Successful Enterprise

Andy Clayton
Designed cover image: © Getty Images / Mykyta Dolmatov
First published 2024
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2024 Andy Clayton
The right of Andy Clayton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Clayton, Andy, author.
Title: The scale model: How to Set Up and Run a Successful
Enterprise / Andy Clayton.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2024. |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2023032602 (print) | LCCN 2023032603
(ebook) | ISBN 9781032472287 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032481265
(paperback) | ISBN 9781003387558 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Small business—Growth.
Classification: LCC HD62.7 .C53 2024 (print) | LCC HD62.7 (ebook) |
DDC 658.02/2—dc23/eng/20230818
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023032602
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023032603
ISBN: 978-1-032-47228-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-48126-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-38755-8 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003387558
Typeset in Joanna
by codeMantra
This book is dedicated to the amazing team at Scale, and all our
Members that we’ve been on the journey together with. Creating
the content of this book has been a team effort, and draws on
the collective experience of the coaching team, in particular, our
inspiring lead coaches, Antony Enright and James Summers,
who have tirelessly shared their experience, tested the tools, and
enriched this content over the years.

Also, a special thanks to Claire Butcher who so patiently pulled all

the content together for publishing.
 CONTENTS

Forewordxiv

PART I
Getting started 1

1 Introduction to the Scale Model 3

Summary3
Scale members 3
Let’s talk about scale 4
The barriers to scale 9
How to break through? 10
Commit to change 12
Get support 14
How to use this content 14
Where do the ideas come from? 15

2 Key principles 17
Summary17
Mindset18
viii Contents

Accelerating growth 19
Investment required 20
Your role 22
Vision and belief 23
Commit to a rhythm 25
Que sera, sera 27

3 The Scale Model checklist 29

Summary29
Key concepts 31
Worksheet33
Understanding the checklist items 34
Exercise – how to use the Scale Model checklist (SMC) 37
Tips and guide 38

PART II
Strategy41

4 SMC 1 – Scale Strategic Plan 43

Summary44
Introduction44
Getting it into one place 45
Getting it on to ‘one page’ 48
Components of a Strategic Plan 48
Strategic Plan worksheet 50
The ‘how’ of it: a practical guide to
preparing your strategy 51

5 Strategy 1 – The core 59

Summary59
Purpose60
Vision69
Culture – Core Values 75
 Contents ix

6 Strategy 2 – Commercial strategy 85

Summary85
Introduction to commercial strategy 86
Building out your commercial strategy 91
Core customer 91
Market positioning 97
Choosing the right axes 101
X-factor105
USPs111
The 1-minute strategy 119
The 1-minute strategy exercise 121

7 Strategy 3 – Base camps 124

Summary124
What do we mean by ‘base camps’? 125
A clear picture of 3–5 years 126
Annual initiatives 130

PART III
Checklists – Diagnosing bottlenecks 139

8 SMC 2 – Meeting effectiveness 141

Checklist item 141
Summary141
Concepts142
Solving your meeting problems 144
Worksheet147
Meeting best practices 148
Two key meetings 151
Weekly management meeting 152
Daily huddle 157
Key concepts 157
Worksheet161
Exercise162
x Contents

9 SMC 3 – Accountability and team structure 163

Checklist item 163
Summary164
Tools and exercises 164
Accountability164
Team structure 172

10 SMC 4 – We’re too busy! 181

Checklist item 181
Summary181
Key concepts 182
Worksheets188
Exercise190

11 SMC 5 – Executing strategy – quarterly planning 194

Checklist item 194
Summary194
Key concepts – the ‘QPD’ (Quarterly Planning Day) 195
What is a QPD? And why are they important? 196
When to do QPDs? 197
Why a quarter? 197
Where to have QPDs? 198
Workshops virtual vs. in-person 199
Who should attend QPDs? 199
Cascading QPDs 199
QPD agenda 200
The QPD process 202
On the day 203

12 SMC 6 – Team leadership 214

Checklist item 214
Summary215
Concepts215
 Contents xi

Team dynamics 218

Key concepts 218
Personality profiles 226
Coaching231
Guide and pitfalls 237
Leadership characteristics 239
Giving feedback 243

13 SMC 7 – Profitability 252

Checklist item 252
Summary252
Key concepts – profitability 253
Power of One 258
Pricing263
Key concepts 263
Cost control 276

14 SMC 8 – Cash 278

Checklist item 278
Summary278
Dials of cash flow 279
Key concepts 279
Cash conversion cycle 285

15 SMC 9 – Organisational culture 292

Checklist item 292
Summary292
Bringing Core Values to life 293
Talent assessment chart 301
Key concepts 301

16 SMC 10 – Systems and processes 307

Checklist item 307
x ii Contents

Summary307
Process accountability 308
Key concepts 308
Worksheet310
Exercise311
Process resolution 312
Key concepts 312

17 SMC 11 – Collecting customer feedback 320

Checklist item 320
Summary321
Key concepts 321
Worksheet326
Exercise327

18 SMC 12 – Sales and marketing functions 328

Checklist item 328
Summary328
Brand map 329
Key concepts 329
Worksheet333
Exercise334
Marketing channels 334
Key concepts 335
Worksheet338
Exercise339
Sales Playbook 340
Key concepts 340
Sales Playbook 344
 Contents x iii

PART IV
Bonus tools 351

19 Maximising company value 353

Summary353
The problem 353
How to fix it? – The shareholder value checklist 355
Worksheet356
Exercise357
Pitfalls, guidelines, and FAQs 358

20 Planning survey 360

Welcome page 360
Survey questions 361
 FOREWORD

Is this program for you?

If you relate to the description below, then this book may help you to trans-
form your company (and your life).
If not, you may find your time best spent elsewhere.

• You run a business. Maybe you started out as a ‘practitioner’ – an ex-

pert in a specific field who does not view business or being an ‘en-
trepreneur’ as your primary vocation, you are something else first.
Maybe business was never your first interest, or focus of your academic
interest.
• You read business books, and find them useful, but they contain a
lot of unnecessary terminology and breathless promises of the world,
without being a practical guide on what to do.
• You have a good team but haven’t been able to get them to fully step
up to take the business forward and through to the next level of sales.
• You’re constantly hitting bottlenecks to further growth and getting
frustrated with them.
• Maybe you’ve had an insight, an idea on how the business might grow,
or a knowledge of your market and industry that you could use to drive
growth, and you want to scratch that itch, to see if you can really make
it work.
 Foreword xv

• You have friends or people in your network that have sold their com-
panies and made good money from it, and you’re wondering how to
achieve this for your business. Not that that was your primary motiva-
tion in setting up the company, but as time passes, you realise that it
may be important for you too.

What happens next

If that does describe you, then let me share what will happen if you put in
practice the tools laid out here.
Firstly, things won’t suddenly change overnight. That might be prom-
ised elsewhere, but not here. You and the team will derive short-term en-
ergy from setting a new direction and creating new strategies, but it will
feel difficult to maintain the habits and disciplines necessary to see them
through. You will have to get into the habit of constantly referring to a new
source of insight – this program. Maybe you’ll hire someone, like a coach,
to help keep you on track, to make the journey easier.
You will find that, in the first few quarters, you will still be stuck clear-
ing out some of the issues of the past. Maybe you need to free up capacity
to focus on change projects, or get key processes un-gummed. Maybe you
realise you have some missing spots in the team that take time to fill.
Whilst making these changes though, you will simultaneously narrow
your plans down to just one or a few key projects that you know will de-
liver real growth, and get the team focused on delivering them. At times
you will doubt whether you can see it through, or whether it will achieve
the outcomes you want. But, deep down, you’ll know you’re on the right
track, and you will have wonderful moments where you can see the end in
sight, and know you’ve got it in you.
Then you’ll have some kind of launch. Maybe a new product set, or a
pivot to a new market. Maybe you’ll expand, opening new offices, func-
tions, or departments. Even then, it might not go as planned, at first.
Sales and orders may take time to come through, some of the people
hired will turn out not to be the right ones, and at those times you and
the team just have to keep the faith, and carry on tweaking till you get
it right.
And then, like the engines of a plane opening on the tarmac, you will
feel it. Growth will start to power through the organisation, generating a
x vi Foreword

momentum all of its own. People who’ve been around a while will come to
believe it, newer people will take it for granted, and all around you you’ll
see new faces.

What the future looks like

In 2 – 3 years’ time, this is what life will look like:

• You have the intense pride and pleasure of listening to plans, propos-
als, and solutions from a team of people, many of whom are new to
the business, that genuinely impress you. This growth in the team has
been funded by growth in your business.
• Your role has changed. You’re no longer involved in those day-to-day
tasks that frustrated you, but working on the key area where you add
value.
• You have a leadership team around you who are aligned, working well
together, and driving real change. You realise they’re actually doing a
better job of key functions than you could.
• You’re able to go on holiday, and the phone doesn’t ring.
• There are clear schedules of meetings to set and manage growth plans
for the business. Sometimes, you cannot make it to them, but they
carry on and deliver great outcomes regardless.

It’s not all perfect in this new world though, new problems and emotions
have emerged:

• You look at the P&L and cashflow forecast, and though everything is
fine, it’s scary to see how large some of the numbers have become.
• You’re having to seriously consider what your exit from the business
looks like, which feels like a weighty decision. Dealing with actual or
potential investors may be beneficial, but is changing how you feel
about the business.
• The team still has a strong culture, which you’ve worked hard on, but
it’s lost some of the former intimacy. Elements of corporate life have
crept in, and pressure is sometimes required to ensure teams work well
together.
 Foreword x vii

• You reflect that it’s been several years of challenge, with stressful peri-
ods, tough decisions, and a lot of hard work.

So, before you read on, think carefully. Growth is a laudable objective, but
is it what you’re really looking for? There will be trade-offs to be made.
Much as I want to make it easy, there will be late nights, early starts, diffi-
cult conversations, and moments of doubt and discomfort. Only read on if
you’re really game.

Final thought
One final thing to bear in mind. As you go through that journey, you will
have dark moments. You will doubt yourself, question the sanity of the un-
dertaking, face fears and risks. In those moments, you may feel like you’re
the only person who could make such a mess of things.
Please trust me when I say: you are not alone. Choosing the path of
being an entrepreneur is not easy. Maybe there is a mythical version of us
out there that wears it like a light garment, but I’ve yet to meet them. Never
let yourself believe that it is easier for others in some way, we continue to
choose to experience those tough moments.
 Part I
GETTING STARTED
 1
INTRODUCTION TO
THE SCALE MODEL

Summary
Most companies remain small, because growing a business is hard. It re-
quires both managing day-to-day activities well and focusing on change
projects to drive growth. Few teams pull this off. In this chapter, we share
some of the key tools and techniques to understand how to focus the busi-
ness on such change initiatives.

Scale members
This is a book about forward-thinking, purpose-driven, entrepreneurial
companies, committed to providing a great life to their team members, real
value to their customers, and having an impact on the world.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003387558-2
4 GE T T IN G S TA R T ED

Take ThirdWay Group – www.thirdway.com – (TWG). By 2022, they had

become the United Kingdom’s leading office space design and build com-
pany, just 13 years after they were founded. In that time, they outpaced their
competition, and won awards for their products and services, how they
treat their staff, and innovation in the industry. They are now expanding
across the country, are well-funded, growing rapidly, and highly profitable.
But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. They experienced some serious set-
backs and stalled badly in their growth in 2018. Several crises came one af-
ter another, and they realised they were suffering from the issues of growth.
They knew they needed to make big changes, so they got their team to-
gether and committed to a new system to manage the business. Since that
time, quarter by quarter, they have cumulatively built up improvements that
have culminated, 4 years later, in becoming the #1 company in their industry.
They have used the Scale Model.
They’re not alone. The Scale Model is working for companies across in-
dustries and geographies. These companies have expanded to global mar-
kets, won prizes for their impact as excellent employers, and achieved
ambitions, such as acquisition by global leaders. Many of their stories are
included in this book. We hope you can see a link between where you are
and where you would like to be – and how you can take practical steps to
get there, through the following pages.
They all have a few things in common:

• A desire to have an impact on the world

• An openness to new ideas, to be ‘coachable’
• A willingness to stick to some hard disciplines
• A desire to do things differently – different from the competition, and
different from how they used to be done.

This book brings together for you the collective learnings and best practices
from this extraordinary community. Above all, it will show you where and
how to apply focus, and to stick with that focus.

Let’s talk about scale

Scaling a company is hard, few companies get there. Of the 5.5 million
companies registered in the United Kingdom, just 1.4 million actually
 Introduction to the S cale M odel 5

employ people, and of those, just 7,700 have more than 250 employees.
Did you know that if your company passes 50 employees, it makes you one
of just 0.7% of companies in the country?

5.6 million (total number of U.K. businesses in 2021)

Type # Employees # Companies % Companies

Self-employed/sole traders 0 4.17 million 74.7

Micro 1–10 1.16m 20.8
Small 11–49 210,295 3.8
Medium 50–249 35,600 0.6
Large >250 7,700 0.1

Source: Companies House, % of types of businesses in the United Kingdom.

Most people are surprised to learn this, as we are much more aware
of those 7,500 large companies, either as clients, employees, or suppliers.
They account for about a third of employment and GDP of the country, but
there are actually very few of them.
On a chart, it’s even clearer what big jumps these are. The number of
companies decreases by orders of magnitude with each tier. Each is approx-
imately 20% of the previous (i.e. there are about 20% as many small com-
panies as micro ones). This is a negative exponential curve – a constant,
compounded rate of decline.
6 GE T T IN G S TA R T ED

It’s easy to say ‘of course there are fewer large companies than small
ones’, it seems somehow obvious. But why should it be so? From the per-
spective of ideal organisational size, is there a reason that dictates that
within an economy it is inherently more efficient for most companies to
be small?
In theory, company size could follow a normal distribution, like so
many other population groups.

The fact that it doesn’t, implies that there is some strong selection pres-
sure against companies growing to scale. Why might this be the case? It
could be because of…

• Preference. Maybe most company owners do not want to own a large

company and the stress that comes with it.
• Team effectiveness. Human beings operate together optimally in cer-
tain small group sizes. Once you pass those limits, team dynamics start
to erode and fail, naturally slowing growth.
• Growth of complexity. An organisation is full of ‘nodes’. Each person,
point of communication, IT system, product, department, and so on,
is a node. Linear increase in # of nodes leads to quadratic increase
in # of connections between those nodes, which becomes compli-
cated, becoming harder and harder to manage. Prevalent is the effect
on decision-making, and how this slows with growth. This is called
‘Metcalfe’s law’.
 Introduction to the S cale M odel 7

Metcalfe’s law.

• Limited lifespan. Founders cannot run companies forever, and when

handed over to second generations or new owners, the focus, insight,
and drive that grew the company often fades. Average company lifespan
in the United Kingdom is just 8.5 years, and they generally start from
zero sales, so there’s a limit to how far you can go, and how fast.
• Investment. Growth requires cash, therefore the limited pool of capi-
tal caps growth to a small number of companies.

But there is a problem with these arguments. The data show considerable
benefits of scale. Something happens as companies get larger that leads to
larger companies being more efficient. Look at the average sales and sales
per employee for companies of different size (U.K. Companies House data
for 2021):
Large companies are almost 30% more efficient than micro ones when
measured by sales per employee. This is the principle of economies of
scale at work. So what are the benefits of scale?

• Network effects. Some business models benefit intrinsically from

scale, especially those where a network effect is at play (e.g. a social
8 GE T T IN G S TA R T ED

Sales per employee for different company sizes.

media network, or a car share platform). The larger the network be-
comes, the more valuable it is to each node within the network.
• Ability to invest. Areas such as research and development, interna-
tional expansion, product development, branding, and attracting talent
all benefit from a critical mass in investment. Larger budgets give an
advantage, creating positive snowball effects.
• Brand. Once a brand accumulates credentials and recognition in a
market, it accrues many benefits, such as preferential selection by cus-
tomers and employees. Legacy and scale often accrue brand benefit
over time.
• Access to capital. Capital flows not to where it is needed the most, but
to where it is viewed as being most secure. This leads to the counter-
intuitive reality that capital chases capital, that is, investors are more
likely to put more money into large organisations with considerable
existing resources.
• Cost economies. If a large pool of people can share resources and sup-
port functions, such as IT systems, HR, and Finance, there is a cost per
unit saving that increases with scale.

Combined, these forces can create powerful flywheel effects, whereby

each contributes to the other, with increasing velocity, complementing in-
creasing scale.
 Introduction to the S cale M odel 9

These are common flywheel effects:

Common flywheel effects that can drive the growth to scale.

The barriers to scale

So, if scale accrues such benefits, why is it so rare, and hard to attain? Hav-
ing worked with many companies over the years, and observing those that
grow and those that don’t, it’s clear to us why growth is so hard. It’s because
it requires you to do three things at once:

Three key barriers to scale – you have to do these at the same time:
10 GE T T IN G S TA R T ED

• Run it. No matter how good your recruitment and delegation skills,
managing the day-to-day tasks of a business consumes time, such as
serving clients, managing the team, and making sure everyone gets
paid on time.
• Improve it. As a company grows, many issues become bottlenecks that
have to be actively solved in order to maintain growth, such as systems
and process improvements, training and development of the team,
or recruiting senior new functions. The functions and abilities of the
business need to be constantly upgraded.
• Transform it. Really reaching scale requires constantly reinventing
what you do. This is the hardest of all is to focus time and resources
on, but where step-change growth comes from. Examples include de-
veloping a new product set, moving to new markets, or changing your
business model in a substantial way.

It is the ability of the leaders of the business to focus efforts on the ‘Improve
it’ and ‘Transform it’ initiatives that determines their ability to scale. It’s
about working on the business, not in it.

How to break through?

The key to breaking through this barrier to growth can be summed up in
one word: change. If you want to make a change in your life, such as lose
weight, get sober, or change a career, you have to set aside time to focus on,
and apply energy to, that project.
Change in a business works the same way. If you think of the time that
you (and your team) have as being like space in a jar, day-to-day activities
that currently fill that time are like sand, they easily move to fill all the
space.
 Introduction to the S cale M odel 11

Rocks and sand – making room for the important stuff.

Think of change projects as rocks. How are you able to fit both rocks and
sand into the jar? There is only one way: put the rocks in first, and the sand will
fill the rest of the space.
This is how change works; you must force focus. Change projects need
to be prioritised over day-to-day work, for example by diarising regular
team off-sites to focus only on change projects. It will not happen by itself.
An organisation’s capacity for reaching scale is directly linked to its abil-
ity to focus effort away from day-to-day running (whilst ensuring that it
still happens) and on to projects to both improve on the current model and,
crucially, update the business model.
One key habit to achieve this is to bring the leadership team together
every 2–3 months for strategic review, and to set key sprint projects to drive
change in the business; Chapter 11 covers how to structure these sessions.

The direction of travel – where to focus your time and energies.

12 GE T T IN G S TA R T ED

We make this easy for you by introducing two key tools that drive this
priority-setting process:

• The Scale Model checklist. A simple, easy-to-use diagnostic tool to

work out where you need to apply focus to continue growth. It links to
over 30 exercises and worksheets to solve your bottleneck.
• The Scale Strategic plan. An easy-to-understand and follow framework
to create a strategic plan that will inspire the team, win commercially,
and is easy to execute.

The tools to use to help in these three key areas.

These two tools: the Scale Model checklist, and the Scale Strategic plan,
distilled over many years of what works and doesn’t work in actual high-
growth companies, will ensure, with the right work and discipline, that
your business grows, and reaches the aspirations you have for it.

Commit to change
This book will describe for you, in some detail, the specific steps to take
to grow your business. It’s practical and helpful. There will be insights that
may be new, and some will be familiar common sense. But it can’t make
the change for you. The Scale Model process helps make it easy, but the
journey to scale is hard work, often stressful, and full of pitfalls.
If you’re serious about achieving the outcomes we describe, then you
need a strong motivation to make change. I have observed several common
 Introduction to the S cale M odel 13

drives among the many entrepreneurs with whom I have worked through
this journey:

• A sense of purpose. Often with entrepreneurs, you don’t have to

scratch far below the surface to find a motivation to change the world
in some way. This is often married with the mindset that the more
this positive impact can be expanded, the greater the benefit to the
world.
• Legacy. At a certain stage in life, it becomes a powerful motivation
to realise the value of a lifetime’s insight and work and leave behind
something that outlives your direct involvement in it.
• For the team. Some entrepreneurs feel a strong sense of commitment
to their team and want to expand the platform of the business in
order to bring in more people and provide greater opportunities for
them.
• Make money. We use many terms to describe it, such as ‘ambitious’,
‘commercial’, or ‘growth-focused’, but the desire to get richer is a
strong motivation for many entrepreneurs. Sometimes, we observe
friends or competitors ‘running ahead’, and want to catch up.
• Insight. Timing is everything. Sometimes a particular opportunity ap-
pears in an industry, or you become aware of an insight that could lead
to growth in the market, and a sense of a ticking time clock to capital-
ise on that opportunity.
• Frustration. Running a smaller business can be very frustrating. You
often can’t employ the kinds of people you’d want to work with, it can
be hard to delegate away functions you do not enjoy, and it can all feel
like ‘groundhog day’.

Maybe some of these may appear at odds with each other, or there are
multiple drivers that apply to you. That’s ok. For example, it’s fine to be
motivated by a strong sense of purpose to change the world, and a desire
to personally make money. These can exist as ‘ands’ rather than ‘ors’. Pop-
ular business author Jim Collins speaks about ‘the power of the and’, and
avoiding the ‘tyranny of the or’. Life is rarely black and white (though our
interpretation of it often can be), and a theme of this book is about getting
comfortable with such apparent contradictions.
14 GE T T IN G S TA R T ED

Think about what your motivations are for wanting to scale up your
company. Do any on that list resonate with you? Is it enough to be willing
to deal with the stresses and strains that growth will bring?

Get support
The best approach is to have someone on this journey with you. My best
marathon time occurred when I hired a coach, Natasha. Natasha brought
expertise, such as on how to train, and was an important accountability
partner to ensure that I actually got my training done. It’s the same with
growing a business. It may be a new shareholder, a co-founder, a key team
member, or an external coach or consultant. You will stand a much better
chance of delivering the changes you desire if you work with someone
together on this journey.
For most people, insight (e.g. a book like this one) is not enough. I have
observed many businesses that have, at some point, felt the need to de-
scribe changes they want to make, and then not followed through with
them. They make plans that gather dust, or worse still, pay someone else to
make plans that get left in a drawer somewhere. Having another human be-
ing to fully accompany you on this journey will have an enormous impact
on the likelihood of you achieving what you’re looking for. Also, compen-
sating that person will have a big impact on the chance of you doing what
is necessary to achieve your goals.
The process will run more quickly, and you will be more likely to see
it through with the help of a coach. Either introduce this book and meth-
odology to your existing coach or visit www.scalecoach.co.uk and get in
touch with our team if you’re looking for help with the implementation of
anything from this book.

How to use this content

This is a manual. It’s intended to be practical, to be used rather than just
read. Here’s how to get the most out of it:

• Trust the process. Some of the teams we work with don’t like to hear
this phrase, and none of us are comfortable with blind faith. However,
leaning on one system and sticking with it has tremendous benefits:
 Introduction to the S cale M odel 15

It works. It’s tried and tested with dozens of high-growth companies

that have achieved major growth.

• It’s been deliberately made simple and easy to use, with no con-
fusing terminology, so it’s accessible to the whole team.
• It all fits together. This is an integrated system, using one tool as a
diagnostic, which guides you to others for resolution.

• Start at the beginning. Start by reading the intro chapters, then get
familiar with the Scale Model checklist. Avoid the temptation to jump
into specific tools before understanding this one.
• Big bang. Begin the process with a 2-day team away. Kickstart a delib-
erate commitment to change and growth.
• Repeat each quarter. Growth takes time. It requires persistence and
the development of certain habits and routines. Plan for 2–3 full-day
meetings to stay on track each quarter.
• Share with the team. The extent to which your team can be educated
on the principles, concepts, and tools here will decide how your life
will be made easier as part of this process. Make this required reading
at least for the whole leadership team.
• Appoint a champion. Regardless of which tools you decide to work on
first, appoint a champion to lead the process.

The book starts with key principles and mindsets to prepare yourself to ena-
ble growth. Then it introduces the diagnostic tool the Scale Model checklist
which will allow you to diagnose your bottlenecks to growth, and guide
you to the tools to solve them. The rest of the book then consists of over 30
worksheets, tools, and guides that you will use to solve those bottlenecks.
In each case, I share stories, examples, and key concepts, then introduce
the worksheet to be used in the relevant workshop, as well as a clear guide
on how to run that session. Some of the sections also include guides, pit-
falls, and FAQs associated with those workshops.

Where do the ideas come from?

All the tools in this book are ones that work effectively with our mem-
ber companies and have helped them significantly. We have chosen what
16 GE T T IN G S TA R T ED

works. Many of the tools originate from other business books, often with
our amendments and improvements. This is a book of books. Very few of
the ideas are original; this is about what works, not about what’s shiny and
new. In all cases, authors and sources are referenced and suggested reading
provided.
 2
KEY PRINCIPLES

Summary
This is a book about change: identifying, designing, and delivering the
change you want in your organisation to hit important objectives for your
life. To prepare yourself for this change, there are several key principles
and mindsets you must take on board to make this journey work for you:

• Growth depends on adding quality people, which feeds a positive

‘flywheel effect’
• Growth demands investment
• You will need confidence in your vision
• Establishing a rhythm of execution is the key to success
• To avoid being the bottleneck, you must progress from running and
managing the business to being the owner (on and not in)
• Never take yourself too seriously, or forget the huge impact of luck
and timing.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003387558-3
18 GE T T IN G S TA R T ED

Mindset
If you’re serious about scaling, there is a critical mindset that you have to
develop, and again it hinges upon a concept with the power of the and at
its heart. Let’s take an example.
A team that we work with, as part of a key project, was debating
whether or not to set a target for staff recruitment over the upcom-
ing year. The team wanted to grow as a business, and associated this
with an increase in headcount (HC), particularly in the sales team. They
identified a correlation between the two statements: ‘Grow business’
and ‘Add people’.
The debate was as to whether growing HC itself was in fact a legiti-
mate target, or whether it was the outcome of other growth-related activi-
ties. Some people held that the relationship between these two statements
was:

Grow Business –> Add People

This is an example of ‘linear causality’, one thing leads to another. An

equivalent statement might be ‘When I become a senior leader, then I will
hire a PA’.
Others were making the counterargument that, if they increased capac-
ity in their sales team, this would in fact drive growth

Add People –> Grow Business

Also a linear statement, but in reverse, much like ‘people become senior
leaders because they hire executive help early, which helps them to pro-
gress faster’.
The answer lies in understanding that the relationship between the
statements above is circular, not linear. With circular causality, the rela-
tionship between the two original statements looks more like this:
 K ey principles 19

The circular relationship between adding people and growing the business.

A better term to describe this might be complementarity. It is an AND

statement, rather than a THEN statement. One reinforces the other, with no
distinct start or end point.
So where did that leave the team looking to set HC targets? In this case,
they did set HC as a target for the sales teams. They took the view that each
person and each team they added would drive revenue-generating capacity
over the medium term for the business, which would drive growth. They
chose to force the wheel to turn faster by adding people.

Accelerating growth
This concept of circularity is important to the related principle of the
flywheel (also popularised by Jim Collins). At first, running a busi-
ness takes a lot of energy to make any progress. As it grows, with each
incremental improvement (e.g. new customer, team member, system/
process, or improvement in financial standing), the system starts to
move ever quicker, gaining momentum, until it ends up pushing you
forward.
So how do you accelerate this flywheel? There are many things that
can contribute to the speed of rotation, such as having high enough prices
and margins to allow reinvestment, having a tight rhythm of meetings
and communications, and maintaining consistent direction of strategy. The
one thing that most tangibly accelerates it though is adding and retaining
quality people to the team. The heart of company growth therefore often
20 GE T T IN G S TA R T ED

The flywheel.

comes down to how quickly can we get quality people in place, to focus on the chal-
lenges we face, and grow the business.
For many entrepreneurs (but not all), our default setting again tends to
be cautious. Having experienced existential cash crises, or dealt with the
consequences of hiring the wrong people, it’s easy to become conservative
about hiring decisions and to hold back. To grow, however, you have to
find an optimum speed for growth. It’s like a rally car drifting through a
corner. Go too slow, and you won’t win the race, go too fast, and you’ll
spin out…

Cornering at the right speed.

As you truly progress and start to think like an investor in your own
business, you realise that growth is often limited by the speed at which
you can generate and deploy capital. Let’s look more at the relationship
between business growth and investment.

Investment required
All entrepreneurs have experienced failure, it comes with the territory. At
some point, this has almost always included running out of money. These
events can be traumatic, the pain of them stays with us and affects our
 K ey principles 21

decision-making and approach throughout our careers. This is a healthy

trait; however, it can cause entrepreneurs to become conservative and
risk-averse.
Growth requires in us a desire to take risks, and growing a business
takes investment. It’s hard to avoid this fundamental law. Engrain these
words in your mind, as it’s key to everything that follows.
Please do not assume that ‘investment’ immediately means looking for
external sources of funding. It simply means that if we want to grow in the
future, we will have to apply resources today; there is simply no escaping
this. ‘Investment’ can take different forms, most of them revolving around
two key (semi-interchangeable) inputs: time and money.

• Your time. The single most valuable resource in the company.

• The team’s time. This may ‘cost’ more than just the expense of their
paid time, such as time away from other projects (opportunity cost), or
fee-earning time, so lost client revenue.
• Company funds, including reinvesting retained profits, or using com-
pany reserves.
• External funds, including debt (such as a bank loan or mortgaging the
house), and raising external equity investment.

One CEO with whom we work, when discussing a key priority project for
the business, described the issue as follows: ‘If this was a client project,
we wouldn’t be discussing whether we can hit timelines, we would just
resource it, plan it, and get it done’. This is an investment mindset, it’s an
22 GE T T IN G S TA R T ED

understanding that, in the long run, change projects such as the one being
discussed will generate more value than a current client project.
The key challenge you face in making these commitments is that it re-
quires taking on certain costs now and committing them to uncertain
future outcomes. This asymmetry profoundly affects decision-making in
strategic discussions.
Amongst Scale members, many have found external funding an accel-
erant to growth, while others have managed to find internal sources of
cashflow to fund growth.

Your role
Looking back at the growth model introduced at the start of the book,
we can also use it to think about the stages of development of the
entrepreneur:

Each bottleneck corresponds to a key role.

Practitioner. In many scaling businesses, the founder(s) are also the

ones who originally provided front-line service to customers. This makes
them practitioner-experts, maybe skilled in a vocational area, such as
dentistry, psychology, construction, or hospitality. This subject matter
expertise is of value in designing the development of the business, but
involvement in front-line practitioner work takes away from activities to
grow the business.
 K ey principles 23

Manager. As a business evolves and grows, the capabilities of the or-

ganisation need to be constantly upgraded and improved, in order to avoid
the inevitable bottlenecks that come with growth. The knowledge required
for this work is much more ‘general business’, covering specialist business
functions like operations, finance, and HR. This requires importing or de-
veloping such skills, often from outside.
Owner. Although we have this role from day 1, it’s often strangely back-
seat, and the voice of shareholder value is often drowned out by more ur-
gent day-to-day concerns. Over time, as entrepreneurs grow and develop,
they start to think increasingly like investors in their own business. The
development of this mindset is key to really achieving scale.
Or, to take an example:

1 Practitioner. ‘I am an architect’.
2 Manager. ‘I run an architecture practice’.
3 Owner. ‘We transform green buildings’.

This matches with the well-known ‘3 stages of developing wealth’ often

shared amongst entrepreneurs:

• Stage 1. Use your time and efforts to make money.

• Stage 2. Use other people’s time and efforts to make money.
• Stage 3. Use your money to make money.

Understand clearly: you are the bottleneck to the growth of your busi-
ness. The extent to which you can accelerate your progress up the curve
from Practitioner to Owner will unlock growth.

Vision and belief

The path to achieving growth requires courage, mostly in the form of be-
lief in our own visions.
Everything is conceived twice – once in the mind, and then again in
reality. Entrepreneurs are people for whom the first conception must be
strong enough to ensure that the second follows. This requires confidence
24 GE T T IN G S TA R T ED

in vision, and a willingness and ability to bring others on board with it.
For some entrepreneurs, this is a natural strength, they exude a force or
willpower that compels others. Sometimes, it can border on delusion, a
conflation of fantasy and reality.

What is more common though is self-doubt. Do you have the correct

insight, idea, or vision to merit investing considerable resources – your
own and those of others – into it?
The answer lies in experience. If you’ve been doing what you do for
more than 2–3 years, you probably have as good an idea as anyone in your
industry as to where the opportunities and threats lie. More than 4–5 years
and you are an industry expert. However, a quirk of human psychology
works against us here.
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a common human bias. It is common
to see an irrational surge in confidence at an early stage of competence.
When I first started learning to windsurf, I believed I would be riding
huge waves in no time. It took time to learn just how far down the curve I
was, and how hard that would be. When you start to gain expertise, how-
ever, you’re more likely to question yourself. After having spent 15 years in
China, I ended up having almost nothing to say about it, beyond ‘it’s a big
place’ because I was overwhelmed by the complexity of what I had come
to understand.
 K ey principles 25

The Dunning–Kruger effect – when confidence means ignorance.

At this stage of knowledge, what holds us back is not false hubris, it is

either lacking confidence in our own ideas or being overwhelmed at the
complexity of potential things that could go wrong. So, as you consider
going on the path and journey towards scale, if you have years of experi-
ence in your field, calibrate towards taking a chance, chasing a dream,
and making leaps of faith. You are far more likely to be held back by fear of
failure or error than you are by actual failure.

Commit to a rhythm
“The message of the Kaizen strategy is that not a day should go by with-
out some kind of improvement being made somewhere in the company.”
Masaaki Imai
26 GE T T IN G S TA R T ED

Delivering change, getting difficult things done, scaling a business, all these
take time and require harnessing the compound effect of rhythms and hab-
its to achieve. The concept of small incremental improvements compound-
ing to huge changes over time is a key part of the ‘Kaizen’ philosophy.
The commitment to scaling is not just to a single-shot project or one-off
planning session, it is to a new way of working over a sustained period
of time. Be aware of the nature of how benefits accrue when you start
making changes and improvements. Adding a 1% benefit each day is barely
noticeable at first. When all the 1% start to compound, over time big im-
provements become clear. In the early stages, it takes grit and perseverance
to keep going, and get through ‘the valley of disappointment’.

The valley of disappointment – incremental gains take time to hit (then get big fast).

One team with whom we work has been growing at 50% per quarter
now, but it took it 3 years to reach that point. As the saying goes: ‘It’s amazing
how long it takes to build an overnight success’.
One of the keys to maintaining this is to have a rhythm. Be intentional
about how you design the daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual
meeting rhythms, and stick to it. Have a bias to rapid, short meetings so that
you batch ad hoc communication and maintain pace. This is explained in
more depth in Chapter 8.
Another random document with
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these attributed founders. So too, may be taken, the legend which
Ammianus Marcellinus records and approves,――that it was
founded by Sandan, a wealthy and eminent person from Ethiopia,
who at some early period not specified, is said to have built Tarsus. It
was however, at the earliest period that is definitely mentioned,
subject to the Assyrian empire; and afterwards fell under the
dominion of each of the sovranties which succeeded it, passing into
the hands of the Persian and of Alexander, as each in turn assumed
the lordship of the eastern world. While under the Persian sway, it is
commemorated by Xenophon as having been honored by the
presence of the younger Cyrus, when on his march through Asia to
wrest the empire from his brother. On this occasion, he entered this
region through the northern “gates of Cilicia,” and passed out
through the “gates of Syria,” a passage which is, in connection with
this event, very minutely described by the elegant historian of that
famous expedition.
Sardanapalus.――The fact of the foundation both of Tarsus and Anchialus by this
splendid but unfortunately extravagant monarch, the last of his line, is commemorated by
Arrian, who refers to the high authority of an inscription which records the event.

“Anchialus is said to have been founded by the king of Assyria, Sardanapalus. The
fortifications, in their magnitude and extent, still, in Arrian’s time, bore the character of
greatness, which the Assyrians appear singularly to have affected in works of the kind. A
monument, representing Sardanapalus, was found there, warranted by an inscription in
Assyrian characters, of course in the old Assyrian language, which the Greeks, whether well
or ill, interpreted thus: ‘Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, in one day founded Anchialus
and Tarsus. Eat, drink, play: all other human joys are not worth a fillip.’ Supposing this
version nearly exact, (for Arrian says it was not quite so,) whether the purpose has not been
to invite to civil order a people disposed to turbulence, rather than to recommend
immoderate luxury, may perhaps reasonably be questioned. What, indeed, could be the
object of a king of Assyria in founding such towns in a country so distant from his capital,
and so divided from it by an immense extent of sandy desert and lofty mountains, and, still
more, how the inhabitants could be at once in circumstances to abandon themselves to the
intemperate joys which their prince has been supposed to have recommended, is not
obvious; but it may deserve observation that, in that line of coast, the southern of Lesser
Asia, ruins of cities, evidently of an age after Alexander, yet barely named in history, at this
day astonish the adventurous traveler by their magnificence and elegance.” (Mitford’s
Greece, Vol. IX. pp. 311, 312.)

Over the same route passed the conquering armies of the great
Alexander. At Issus, within the boundaries of Cilicia, he met, in their
mightiest array, the vast hosts of Darius, whom here vanquishing, he
thus decided the destiny of the world. Before this great battle, halting
to repose at Tarsus, he almost met his death, by imprudently bathing
in the classic Cydnus, whose waters were famed for their extreme
coldness. By a remarkable coincidence, the next conqueror of the
world, Julius Caesar, also rested at Tarsus for some days before his
great triumphs in Asia Minor. Cilicia had in the interval between
these two visits passed from the Macedonian to the Roman
dominion, being made a Roman province by Pompey, about sixty
years before Christ, at the time when all the kingdoms of Asia and
Syria were subjugated. After this it was visited by Cicero, at the time
of his triumphs over the cities of eastern Cilicia; and its classic
stream is still farther celebrated in immortal verse and prose, as the
scene where Marcus Antony met Cleopatra for the first time. It was
the Cydnus, down which she sailed in her splendid galley, to meet
the conqueror, who for her afterwards lost the empire of the world.
During all the civil wars which desolated the Roman empire through
a long course of years in that age, Tarsus steadily adhered to the
house of Caesar, first to the great Julius and afterwards to Augustus.
So remarkable was its attachment and devotion to the cause of
Julius, that when the assassin Cassius marched through Asia into
Syria to secure the dominion of the eastern world, he laid siege to
Tarsus, and having taken it, laid it waste with the most destructive
vengeance for its adherence to the fortunes of his murdered lord;
and such were its sufferings under these and subsequent calamities
in the same cause, that when Augustus was at last established in the
undivided empire of the world, he felt himself bound in honor and
gratitude, to bestow on the faithful citizens of Tarsus the most
remarkable favors. The city, having at the request of its inhabitants
received the new name of Juliopolis, as a testimony of their devotion
to the memory of their murdered patron, was lavishly honored with
almost every privilege which the imperial Augustus could bestow on
these most faithful adherents of his family. From the terms in which
his acts of generosity to them are recorded, it has been
inferred,――though not therein positively stated,――that he
conferred on it the rank and title of a Roman colony, or free city,
which must have given all its inhabitants the exalted privileges of
Roman citizens. This assertion has been disputed however, and
forms one of the most interesting topics in the life of the great
apostle, involving the inquiry as to the mode in which he obtained
that inviolable privilege, which, on more than one occasion, snatched
him from the clutches of tyrannical persecutors. Whether he held this
privilege in common with all the citizens of Tarsus, or inherited it as a
peculiar honor of his own family, is a question yet to be decided. But
whatever may have been the precise extent of the municipal favors
enjoyed by Tarsus, it is certain that it was an object of peculiar favor
to the imperial Caesars during a long succession of years, not only
before but after the apostle’s time, being crowned with repeated acts
of munificence by Augustus, Adrian, Caracalla and Heliogabalus, so
that through many centuries it was the most favored city in the
eastern division of the Roman empire.

The history of Cilicia since the apostolic age, is briefly this: It remained attached to the
eastern division of the Roman empire, until about A. D. 800, when it first fell under the
Muhammedan sway, being made part of the dominion of the Califs by Haroun Al Rashid. In
the thirteenth century it reverted to a Christian government, constituting a province of the
Armenian kingdom of Leo. About A. D. 1400, it fell under the sway of Bajazet II., Sultan of
the Ottoman empire, and is at present included in that empire,――most of it in a single
Turkish pashalic, under the name of Adana.

Roman citizens.――Witsius very fully discusses this point, as follows. (Witsius on the
Life of Paul § 1. ¶ V.)

“It is remarkable that though he was of Tarsus, he should say that he was a Roman
citizen, and that too by the right of birth: Acts xxii. 28. There has been some discussion
whether he enjoyed that privilege in common with all the Tarsans, or whether it was peculiar
to his family. Most interpreters firmly hold the former opinion. Beza remarks, ‘that he calls
himself a Roman, not by country, but by right of citizenship; since Tarsus had the privileges
of a Roman colony.’ He adds, ‘Mark Antony, the triumvir, presented the Tarsans with the
rights of citizens of Rome.’ Others, without number, bear the same testimony. Baronius
goes still farther,――contending that ‘Tarsus obtained from the Romans, the municipal
right,’ that is, the privileges of free-born citizens of Rome; understanding Paul’s expression
in Acts xxi. 39, to mean that he was a municeps of Tarsus, or a Tarsan with the freedom of
the city of Rome. Now the municipal towns, or free cities, had rights superior to those of
mere colonies; for the free-citizens were not only called Roman citizens as the colonists
were, but also, as Ulpian records, could share in all the honors and offices of Rome.
Moreover, the colonies had to live under the laws of the Romans, while the municipal towns
were allowed to act according their own ancient laws, and country usages. To account for
the distinction enjoyed by Tarsus, in being called a ‘municipium of Romans,’ the citizens are
said to have merited that honor, for having in the civil wars attached themselves first to
Julius Caesar, and afterwards to Octavius, in whose cause they suffered much. For so
attached was this city to the side of Caesar, that, as Dion Cassius records, their asked to
have their name changed from Tarsus to Juliopolis, in memory of Julius and in token of
good will to Augustus; and for that reason they were presented with the rights of a colony or
a municipium, and this general opinion is strengthened by the high testimony of Pliny and
Appian. On the other hand Heinsius and Grotius strongly urge that these things have been
too hastily asserted by the learned; for scarcely a passage can be found in the ancient
writers, where Tarsus is called a colony, or even a municipium. ‘And how could it be a
colony,’ asks Heinsius, ‘when writers on Roman law acknowledge but two in Cilicia? Ulpian
(Liber I. De censibus) says of the Roman colonies in Asia Minor, “there is in Bithynia the
colony of Apamea,――in Pontus, Sinope,――in Cilicia there are Selinus and Trajanopolis.”
But why does he pass over Tarsus or Juliopolis, if that had place among them?’ Baronius
proves it to have been a municipium, only from the Latin version of Acts, where that word is
used; though the term in the original Greek (πολιτης) means nothing more than the common
word, citizen, (as it is rendered in the English version.) Pliny also calls Tarsus not a colony,
nor a municipium, but a free city. (libera urbs.) Book V. chap xxvii. Appian in the first book of
the civil wars, says that Antony granted to the Tarsans freedom, but says nothing of the
rights of a municipium, or colony. Wherefore Grotius thinks that the only point established is,
that some one of the ancestors of Paul, in the civil wars between Augustus Caesar, and
Brutus and Cassius, and perhaps those between this Caesar and Antony, received the
grant of the privileges of a Roman citizen. Whence he concludes that Paul must have been
of an opulent family. These opinions of Grotius have received the approval of other eminent
commentators. These notions however, must be rejected as unsatisfactory; because,
though some writers have but slightly alluded to Tarsus as a free city, yet Dio Chrysostom,
(in Tarsica posteriore,) has enlarged upon it in a tone of high declamation. ‘Yours, men of
Tarsus, was the fortune to be first in this nation,――not only because you dwell in the
greatest city of Cilicia, and one which was a metropolis from the beginning,――but also
because the second Caesar was remarkably well-disposed and gracious towards you. For,
the misfortunes which befell the city in his cause, deservedly secured to you his kind regard,
and led him to make his benefits to you as conspicuous as the calamities brought upon you
for his sake. Therefore did Augustus confer on you everything that a man could on friends
and companions, with a view to outdo those who had shown him so great good-
will,――your land, laws, honors, the right of the river and of the neighboring sea.’ On which
words Heinsius observes in comment, that by land is doubtless meant that he secured to
them their own territory, free and undisturbed. By laws are meant such as relate to the
liberty usually granted to free towns. Honor plainly refers to the right of citizenship, as the
most exalted he could offer. The point then seems to be established, if this interpretation
holds good, and it is evidently a rational one. For when he had made up his mind to grant
high favors to a city, in return for such great merits, why, when it was in his power, should
Augustus fail to grant it the rights of Roman citizenship, which certainly had been often
granted to other cities on much slighter grounds? It would be strange indeed, if among the
exalted honors which Dio proclaims, that should not have been included. This appears to be
the drift, not only of Dio’s remarks, but also of Paul’s, who offers no other proof of his being
a Roman citizen, than that he was a Tarsan, and says nothing of it as a special immunity of
his own family, although some such explanation would otherwise have been necessary to
gain credit to his assertion. Whence it is concluded that it would be rash to pretend, contrary
to all historical testimony, any peculiar merits of the ancestors of Paul, towards the Romans,
which caused so great an honor to be conferred on a Jewish family.”
 But from all these ample and grandiloquent statements of Dio Chrysostom, it by no
means follows that Tarsus had the privilege of Roman citizenship; and the conclusion of the
learned Witsius seems highly illogical. The very fact, that while Dio was panegyrizing Tarsus
in these high terms, and recounting all the favors which imperial beneficence had showered
upon it, he yet did not mention among these minutiae, the privilege of citizenship, is quite
conclusive against this view; for he would not, when thus seeking for all the particulars of its
eminence, have omitted the greatest honor and advantage which could be conferred on any
city by a Roman emperor, nor have left it vaguely to be inferred. Besides, there are
passages in the Acts of the Apostles which seem to be opposed to the view, that Tarsus
was thus privileged. In Acts xxi. 39, Paul is represented as distinctly stating to the tribune,
that he was “a citizen of Tarsus;” yet in xxii. 24, 25, it is said, that the tribune was about
proceeding, without scruple, to punish Paul with stripes, and was very much surprised
indeed, to learn that he was a Roman citizen, and evidently had no idea that a citizen of
Tarsus was, as a matter of course, endowed with Roman citizenship;――a fact, however,
with which a high Roman officer must have been acquainted, for there were few cities thus
privileged, and Tarsus was a very eminent city in a province adjoining Palestine, and not far
from the capital of Judea. And the subsequent passages of chap. xxii. represent him as very
slow indeed to believe it, after Paul’s distinct assertion.

Hemsen is very clear and satisfactory on this point, and presents the argument in a fair
light. See his note in his “Apostel Paulus” on pp. 1, 2. He refers also to a work not otherwise
known here;――John Ortwin Westenberg’s “Dissert. de jurisp. Paul. Apost.” Kuinoel in Act.
Apost. xvi. 37. discusses the question of citizenship.

“It ought not to seem very strange, that the ancestors of Paul should have settled in
Cilicia, rather than in the land of Israel. For although Cyrus gave the whole people of God
an opportunity of returning to their own country, yet many from each tribe preferred the new
country, in which they had been born and bred, to the old one, of which they had lost the
remembrance. Hence an immense multitude of Jews might be found in almost all the
dominions of the Persians, Greeks, Romans and Parthians; as alluded to in Acts ii. 9, 10.
But there were also other occasions and causes for the dispersion of the Jews. Ptolemy, the
Macedonian king of Egypt, having taken Jerusalem from the Syro-Macedonians, led away
many from the hill-country of Judea, from Samaria and Mount Gerizim, into Egypt, where he
made them settle; and after he had given them at Alexandria the rights of citizens in equal
privilege with the Macedonians, not a few of the rest, of their own accord, moved into Egypt,
allured partly by the richness of the land, and partly by the good will that Ptolemy had
shown towards their nation. Afterwards, Antiochus the Great, the Macedonian king of Syria,
about the thirtieth year of his reign, two hundred years before the Christian era, brought out
two thousand Jewish families from Babylonia, whom he sent into Phrygia and Lydia with the
most ample privileges, that they might hold to their duty the minds of the Greeks, who were
then inclining to revolt from his sway. These were from Asia Minor, spread abroad over the
surrounding countries, between the Mediterranean sea, the Euphrates and Mount Amanus,
on the frontiers of Cilicia. Besides, others afterwards, to escape the cruelty of Antiochus
Epiphanes, betook themselves to foreign lands, where, finding themselves well settled, they
and their descendants remained. Moreover, many, as Philo testifies, for the sake of trade, or
other advantages, of their own accord left the land of Israel for foreign countries: whence
almost the whole world was filled with colonies of Jews, as we see in the directions of some
of the general epistles, (James i. 1: 1 Peter i. 1.) Thus also Tarsus had its share of Jewish
inhabitants, among whom were the family of Paul.” (Witsius in Vita Pauli, § 1. ¶ v.)
 Nor were the solid honors of this great Asian city, limited to the
mere favors of imperial patronage. Founded, or early enlarged by the
colonial enterprise of the most refined people of ancient times,
Tarsus, from its first beginning, shared in the glories of Helleno-Asian
civilization, under which philosophy, art, taste, commerce, and
warlike power attained in these colonies a highth before unequalled,
while Greece, the mother country, was still far back in the march of
improvement. In the Asian colonies arose the first schools of
philosophy, and there is hardly a city on the eastern coast of the
Aegean, but is consecrated by some glorious association with the
name of some Father of Grecian science. Thales, Anaxagoras,
Anaximander, and many others of the earliest philosophers, all
flourished in these Asian colonies; and on the Mediterranean coast,
within Cilicia itself, were the home and schools of Aratus and the
stoic Chrysippus. The city of Tarsus is commemorated by Strabo as
having in very early times attained great eminence in philosophy and
in all sorts of learning, so that “in science and art it surpassed the
fame even of Athens and Alexandria; and the citizens of Tarsus
themselves were distinguished for individual excellence in these
elevated pursuits. So great was the zeal of the men of that place for
philosophy, and for the rest of the circle of sciences, that they
excelled both Athens and Alexandria, and every other place which
can be mentioned, where there are schools and lectures of
philosophers.” Not borrowing the philosophic glory of their city
merely from the numbers of strangers who resorted thither to enjoy
the advantages of instruction there afforded, as is almost universally
the case in all the great seats of modern learning; but entering
themselves with zeal and enjoyment into their schools of science,
they made the name of Tarsus famous throughout the civilized
world, for the cultivation of knowledge and taste. Even to this day the
stranger pauses with admiration among the still splendid ruins of this
ancient city, and finds in her arches, columns and walls, and in her
chance-buried medals, the solid testimonies of her early glories in
art, taste and wealth. Well then might the great apostle recur with
patriotic pride to the glories of the city where he was born and
educated, challenging the regard of his military hearers for his native
place, by the sententious allusion to it, as “no mean city.”

“It appears on the testimony of Paul, (Acts xxi. 39,) that Tarsus was a city of no little
note, and it is described by other writers as the most illustrious city of all Cilicia; so much so
indeed, that the Tarsans traced their origin to Ionians and Argives, and a rank superior even
to these;――referring their antiquity of origin not merely to heroes, but even to demi-gods. It
was truly exalted, not only by its antiquity, situation, population and thriving trade, but by the
nobler pursuits of science and literature, which so flourished there, that according to Strabo
it was worthy to be ranked with Athens and Alexandria; and we know that Rome itself owed
its most celebrated professors to Tarsus.” (Witsius. § 1, ¶ iv.)

The testimony of Strabo is found in his Geography, book XIV. Cellarius (Geog. Ant.) is
very full on the geography of Cilicia, and may be advantageously consulted. Conder’s
Modern Traveler (Syria and Asia Minor 2.) gives a very full account of its ancient history, its
present condition, and its topography.

The present appearance of this ancient city must be a matter of great interest to the
reader of apostolic history; and it can not be more clearly given than in the simple narrative
of the enterprising Burckhardt, who wrote his journal on the very spot which he describes.
(Life of Burckhardt, prefixed to his travels in Nubia, pp. xv. xvi.)

“The road from our anchoring place to Tarsus crosses the above-mentioned plain in an
easterly direction: we passed several small rivulets which empty themselves into the sea,
and which, to judge from the size of their beds, swell in the rainy season to considerable
torrents. We had rode about an hour, when I saw at half an hour’s distance to the north of
our route, the ruins of a large castle, upon a hill of a regular shape in the plain; half an hour
further towards Tarsus, at an equal distance from our road, upon a second tumulus, were
ruins resembling the former; a third insulated hillock, close to which we passed midway of
our route, was over-grown with grass, without any ruins or traces of them. I did not see in
the whole plain any other elevations of ground but the three just mentioned. Not far from the
first ruins, stands in the plain an insulated column. Large groups of trees show from afar the
site of Tarsus. We passed a small river before we entered the town, larger than those we
had met on the road. The western outer gate of the town, through which we entered, is of
ancient structure; it is a fine arch, the interior vault of which is in perfect preservation: on the
outside are some remains of a sculptured frieze. I did not see any inscriptions. To the right
and left of this gateway are seen the ancient ruined walls of the city, which extended in this
direction farther than the town at present does. From the outer gateway, it is about four
hundred paces to the modern entrance of the city; the intermediate ground is filled up by a
burying ground on one side of the road, and several gardens with some miserable huts on
the other. * * * * The little I saw of Tarsus did not allow me to estimate its extent; the streets
through which I passed were all built of wood, and badly; some well furnished bazars, and a
large and handsome mosque in the vicinity of the Khan, make up the whole register of
curiosities which I am able to relate of Tarsus. Upon several maps Tarsus is marked as a
sea town: this is incorrect; the sea is above three miles distant from it. On our return home,
we started in a south-west direction, and passed, after two hours and a half’s march, Casal,
a large village, half a mile distant from the sea-shore, called the Port of Tarsus, because
vessels freighted for Tarsus usually come to anchor in its neighborhood. From thence
turning towards the west, we arrived at our ship at the end of two hours. The merchants of
Tarsus trade principally with the Syrian coast and Cyprus: imperial ships arrive there from
time to time, to load grain. The land trade is of very little consequence, as the caravans from
Smyrna arrive very seldom. There is no land communication at all between Tarsus and
Aleppo, which is at ten journeys (caravan traveling) distant from it. The road has been
rendered unsafe, especially in later times, by the depredations of Kutshuk Ali, a savage
rebel, who has established himself in the mountains to the north of Alexandretta. Tarsus is
governed by an Aga, who I have reason to believe is almost independent. The French have
an agent there, who is a rich Greek merchant.”

A fine instance of the value of the testimony of the Fathers on points where knowledge
of the Scriptures is involved, is found in the story by Jerome, who says that “Paul was born
at Gischali, a city of Judea,” (in Galilee,) “and that while he was a child, his parents, in the
time of the laying waste of their country by the Romans, removed to Tarsus, in Cilicia.” And
yet this most learned of the Fathers, the translator of the whole Bible into Latin, did not
know, it seems, that Paul himself most distinctly states in his speech to the Jewish mob,
(Acts xxii. 3,) that he was “born in Cilicia,” as the common translation has it;――in Greek,
γεγενημενος εν Κιλικια,――words which so far from allowing any such assertion as Jerome
makes, even imply that Paul, with Tristram Shandy-like particularity, would specify that he
was “begotten in Cilicia.” Jerome’s ridiculous blunder, Witsius, after exposing its
inconsistency with Jewish history, indignantly condemns, as “a most shameful falsehood,”
(putidissima fabula,) which is as hard a name as has been applied to anything in this book.

But if this blunder is so shameful in Jerome, what shall be said of the learned Fabricius,
who (Bibliotheca Graeca, IV. p. 795,) copies this story from Jerome as authentic history,
without a note of comment, and without being aware that it most positively contradicts the
direct assertion of Paul? And this blunder too is passed over by all the great critical
commentators of Fabricius, in Harles’s great edition. Keil, Kuinoel, Harles, Gurlitt, and
others equally great, who revised all this, are involved in the discredit of the blunder. “Non
omnes omnia.”

his grecian learning.

In this splendid seat of knowledge, Saul was born of purely Jewish

parents. “A Hebrew of the Hebrews,” he enjoyed from his earliest
infancy that minute religious instruction, which every Israelite was in
conscience bound to give his children; and with a minuteness and
attention so much the more careful, as a residence in a foreign land,
far away from the consecrated soil of Palestine and the Holy city of
his faith, might increase the liabilities of his children to forget or
neglect a religion of which they saw so few visible tokens around
them, to keep alive their devotion. Yet, though thus strictly educated
in the religion of his fathers, Saul was by no means cut off by this
circumstance from the enjoyment of many of the advantages in
profaner knowledge, afforded in such an eminent degree by Tarsus;
but must, almost without an effort, have daily imbibed into his ready
and ever active mind, much of the refining influence of Grecian
philosophy. There is no proof, indeed, that he ever formally entered
the schools of heathen science; such a supposition, is, perhaps,
inconsistent with the idea of his principles of rigid Judaism, and is
rendered rather improbable by the great want of Grecian elegance
and accuracy in his writings; which are so decidedly characterized by
an unrhetorical style, and by irregular logic, that they never could
have been the production of a scholar, in the most eminent
philosophical institutions of Asia. But a mere birth and residence in
such a city, and the incidental but constant familiarity with those so
absorbed in these pursuits, as very many of his fellow-citizens were,
would have the unavoidable effect of familiarizing him also with the
great subjects of conversation, and the grand objects of pursuit, so
as ever after to prove an advantage to him in his intercourse with the
refined and educated among the Greeks and Romans. The
knowledge thus acquired, too, is ever found to be of the most readily
available kind, always suggesting itself upon occasions when
needed, according to the simple principle of association, and thus
more easily applied to ordinary use than that which is more regularly
attained, and is arranged in the mind only according to formal
systems. Thus was it, with most evident wisdom, ordained by God,
that in this great seat of heathen learning, that apostle should be
born, who was to be the first messenger of grace to the Grecian
world, and whose words of warning, even Rome should one day
hear and believe.

his family and birth.

The parents of Saul were Jews, and his father at least, was of the
tribe of Benjamin. In some of those numerous emigrations from
Judea which took place either by compulsion or by the voluntary
enterprise of the people, at various times after the Assyrian
conquest, the ancestors of Saul had left their father-land, for the
fertile plains of Cilicia, where, under the patronizing government of
some of the Syro-Macedonian kings, they found a much more
profitable home than in the comparatively uncommercial land of
Israel. On some one of these occasions, probably during the
emigration under Antiochus the Great, the ancestors of Saul had
settled in Tarsus, and during the period intervening between this
emigration and the birth of Saul, the family seems to have
maintained or acquired a very respectable rank, and some property.
From the distinct information which we have that Saul was a free-
born Roman citizen, it is manifest that his parents must also have
possessed that right; for it has already been abundantly shown that it
was not common to the citizens of Tarsus, but must have been a
peculiar privilege of his family. After the subjugation of Cilicia, (sixty-
two years before Christ,) when the province passed from the Syrian
to the Roman sway, the family were in some way brought under the
favorable notice of the new lords of the eastern world, and were
honored with the high privilege of Roman citizenship, an honor which
could not have been imparted to any one low either in birth or
wealth. The precise nature of the service performed by them, that
produced such a magnificent reward, it is impossible to determine;
but that this must have been the reason, it is very natural to
suppose. But whatever may have been the extent of the favors
enjoyed by the parents of Saul, from the kindness of their heathen
rulers, they were not thereby led to neglect the institutions of their
fathers,――but even in a strange land, observed the Mosaic law with
peculiar strictness; for Saul himself plainly asserts that his father was
a Pharisee, and therefore he must have been bound by the rigid
observances of that sect, to a blameless deportment, as far as the
Mosaic law required. Born of such parents, the destined apostle at
his birth was made the subject of the minute Mosaic rituals.
“Circumcised the eighth day,” he then received the name of Saul, a
name connected with some glorious and some mournful
associations in the ancient Jewish history, and probably suggested
to the parents on this occasion, by a reference to its signification, for
Hebrew names were often thus applied, expressing some
circumstance connected with the child; and in this name more
particularly, some such meaning might be expected, since,
historically, it must have been a word of rather evil omen. The
original Hebrew means “desired,” “asked for,” and hence it has been
rather fancifully, but not unreasonably conjectured that he was an
oldest son, and particularly desired by his expecting parents, who
were, like the whole Jewish race, very earnest to have a son to
perpetuate their name,――a wish however, by no means peculiar to
the Israelites.

The name Saul is in Hebrew, ‫ שאול‬the regular noun from the passive Kal participle of ‫שאל‬
(sha-al and sha-el) “ask for,” “beg,” “request;” and the name therefore means “asked for,” or
“requested,” which affords ground for Neander’s curious conjecture, above given.

Of the time of his birth nothing is definitely known, though it is

stated by some ancient authority of very doubtful character, that he
was born in the second year after Christ. All that can be said with
any probability, is, that he was born several years after Christ; for at
the time of the stoning of Stephen, (A. D. 34,) Saul was a “young
man.”

his trade.

There was an ancient Jewish proverb,――often quoted with great

respect in the Rabbinical writings,――“He that does not teach his
son a trade, trains him to steal.” In conformity with this respectable
adage, every Jewish boy, high or low, was invariably taught some
mechanical trade, as an essential part of his education, without any
regard to the wealth of his family, or to his prospect of an easy life,
without the necessity of labor. The consequence of this was, that
even the dignified teachers of the law generally conjoined the
practice of some mechanical business, with the refined studies to
which they devoted the most of their time, and the surnames of
some of the most eminent of the Rabbins are derived from the trades
which they thus followed in the intervals of study, for a livelihood or
for mental relaxation. The advantages of such a variation from
intense mental labor to active and steady bodily exercise, are too
obvious, both as concerns the benefit of the body and the mind, to
need any elucidation; but it is a happy coincidence, worth noticing,
that, the better principles of what is now called “Manual Labor
Instruction,” are herein fully carried out, and sanctioned by the
authority and example of some of the most illustrious of those
ancient Hebrew scholars, whose mighty labors in sacred lore, are
still a monument of the wisdom of a plan of education, which
combines bodily activity and exertion with the full development of the
powers of thought. The labors of such men still remain the wonder of
later days, and form in themselves, subjects for the excursive and
penetrating range of some of the greatest minds of modern times,
throwing more light on the minute signification and local application
of scripture, than all that has been done in any other field of
illustrative research.

“In the education of their son, the parents of Saul thought it their duty according to the
fashion of their nation, not only to train his mind in the higher pursuits of a liberal education,
but also to accustom his hands to some useful trade. As we learn from Acts xviii. 3, ‘he was
by trade a tent-maker,’ occupying the intervals of his study-hours with that kind of work. For
it is well established that this was the usual habit of the most eminent Jewish scholars, who
adopted it as much for the sake of avoiding sloth and idleness, as with a view to provide for
their own support. The Jews used to sum up the duties of parents in a sort of proverb, that
‘they should circumcise their son, redeem him, (Leviticus chapter xxvii.) teach him the law
and a trade, and look out a wife for him.’ And indeed the importance of some business of
this kind was so much felt, that a saying is recorded of one of the most eminent of their
Rabbins, that ‘he who neglects to teach his son a trade, does the same as to bring him up
to be a thief.’ Hence it is that the wisest Hebrews held it an honor to take their surnames
from their trades; as Rabbins Nahum and Meir, the scriveners or book writers,” (a business
corresponding to that of printers in these times,) “Rabbi Johanan the shoemaker, Rabbi
Juda the baker, and Rabbi Jose the currier or tanner. How trifling then is the sneer of some
scoffers who have said that Paul was nothing but a stitcher of skins, and thence conclude
that he was a man of the lowest class of the populace.” (Witsius § I. ¶ 12.)

The trade which the parents of Saul selected for their son, is
described in the sacred apostolic history as that of a “tent-maker.” A
reference to the local history of his native province throws great light
on this account. In the wild mountains of Cilicia, which everywhere
begin to rise from the plains, at a distance of seven or eight miles
from the coast, anciently ranged a peculiar species of long-haired
goats, so well known by name throughout the Grecian world, for their
rough and shaggy aspect, that the name of “Cilician goat” became a
proverbial expression, to signify a rough, ill-bred fellow, and occurs in
this sense in the classic writers. From the hair of these, the Cilicians
manufactured a thick, coarse cloth,――somewhat resembling the
similar product of the camel’s hair,――which, from the country where
the cloth was made, and where the raw material was produced, was
called cilicium or cilicia, and under this name it is very often
mentioned, both by Grecian and Roman authors. The peculiar
strength and incorruptibility of this cloth was so well known, that it
was considered as one of the most desirable articles for several very
important purposes, both in war and navigation, being the best
material for the sails of vessels, as well as for military tents. But it
was principally used by the Nomadic Arabs of the neighboring
deserts of Syria, who, ranging from Amanus and the sea, to the
Euphrates, and beyond, found the tents manufactured from this stout
cloth, so durable and convenient, that they depended on the
Cilicians to furnish them with the material of their moveable homes;
and over all the east, the cilicium was in great demand, for
shepherd’s tents. A passage from Pliny forms a splendid illustration
of this interesting little point. “The wandering tribes, (Nomades,) and
the tribes who plunder the Chaldeans, are bordered by Scenites,
(tent-dwellers,) who are themselves also wanderers, but take their
name from their tents, which they raise of Cilician cloth, wherever
inclination leads them.” This was therefore an article of national
industry among the Cilicians, and afforded in its manufacture,
profitable employment to a great number of workmen, who were
occupied, not in large establishments like the great manufactories of
modern European nations, but, according to the invariable mode in
eastern countries, each one by himself, or at most with one or two
companions. Saul, however, seems to have been occupied only with
the concluding part of the manufacture, which was the making up of
the cloth into the articles for which it was so well fitted by its strength,
closeness and durability. He was a maker of tents of Cilician camlet,
or goat’s-hair cloth,――a business which, in its character and
implements, more resembled that of a sail-maker than any other
common trade in this country. The details of the work must have
consisted in cutting the camlet of the shape required for each part of
the tent, and sewing it together into the large pieces, which were
then ready to be transported, and to form, when hung on tent-poles,
the habitations of the desert-wanderers.
 This illustration of Saul’s trade is from Hug’s Introduction, Vol. II. note on § 85, pp. 328,
329, original, § 80, pp. 335, 336, translation. On the manufacture of this cloth, see Gloss.
Basil, sub voc. Κιλικιος τραγος, &c. “Cilician goat,――a rough fellow;――for there are such
goats in Cilicia; whence also, things made of their hair are called cilicia.” He quotes also
Hesychius, Suidas, and Salmasius in Solinum, p. 347. As to the use of the cloths in war and
navigation, he refers to Vegetius, De re milit. IV. 6, and Servius in Georgica III. 312.――The
passage in Pliny, showing their use by the Nomadic tribes of Syria and Mesopotamia for
shepherd’s tents, is in his Natural History, VI. 28. “Nomadas infestatoresque Chaldaeorum,
Scenitae claudunt, et ipsi vagi, sed a tabernaculis cognominati quae ciliciis metantur, ubi
libuit.” The reading of this passage which I have adopted is from the Leyden Hackian edition
of Pliny, which differs slightly from that followed by Hug, as the critical will perceive. Hemsen
quotes this note almost verbatim from Hug. (Hemsen’s “Apostel Paulus,” page 4.)

The particular species or variety of goat, which is thus described as anciently inhabiting
the mountains of Cilicia, can not now be distinctly ascertained, because no scientific traveler
has ever made observations on the animals of that region, owing to the many difficulties in
the way of any exploration of Asia Minor, under the barbarous Ottoman sway. Neither
Griffith’s Cuvier nor Turton’s Linnaeus contains any reference to Cilicia, as inhabited by any
species or variety of the genus Capra. The nearest approach to certainty, that can be made
with so few data, is the reasonable conjecture that the Cilician goat was a variety of the
species Capra Aegagrus, to which the common domestic goat belongs, and which includes
several remarkable varieties,――at least six being well ascertained. There are few of my
readers, probably, who are not familiar with the descriptions and pictures of the famous
Angora goat, which is one of these varieties, and is well-known for its long, soft, silky hair,
which is to this day used in the manufacture of a sort of camlet, in the place where it is
found, which is Angora and the region around it, from the Halys to the Sangarius. This tract
of country is in Asia Minor, only three or four hundred miles north of Cilicia, and therefore at
once suggests the probability of the Cilician goat being something very much like the
Angora goat. (See Modern Traveler, III. p. 339.) On the other side of Cilicia also, in Syria,
there is an equally remarkable variety of the goat, with similar long, silky hair, used for the
same manufacture. Now Cilicia, being directly on the shortest route from Angora to Syria,
and half-way between both, might very naturally be supposed to have another variety of the
Capra Aegagrus, between the Angoran and the Syrian variety, and resembling both in the
common characteristic of long shaggy or silky hair; and there can be no reasonable doubt
that future scientific observation will show that the Cilician goat forms another well-marked
variety of this widely diffused species, which, wherever it inhabits the mountains of the
warm regions of Asia, always furnishes this beautiful product, of which we have another
splendid and familiar specimen in the Tibet and Cashmere goats, whose fleeces are worth
more than their weight in gold. The hair of the Syrian and Cilician goats, however, is of a
much coarser character, producing a much coarser and stouter fibre for the cloth.

On the subject of Paul’s trade, the learned and usually accurate Michaelis was led into a
very great error, by taking up too hastily a conjecture founded on a misapprehension of the
meaning given by Julius Pollux, in his Onomasticon, on the word σκηνοποιος (skenopoios,)
which is the word used in Acts xiii. 3, to designate the trade of Saul and Aquilas. Pollux
mentions that in the language of the old Grecian comedy, σκηνοποιος was equivalent to
μηχανοποιος, (mechanopoios,) which Michaelis very erroneously takes in the sense of “a
maker of mechanical instruments,” and this he therefore maintains to have been the trade of
Saul and Aquilas. But it is capable of the most satisfactory proof, that Julius Pollux used the
words here merely in the technical sense of theatrical preparation,――the first meaning
simply “a scene-maker,” and the second “a constructor of theatrical machinery,”――both
terms, of course, naturally applied to the same artist. (Michaelis, Introduction, IV. xxiii. 2. pp.
183‒186. Marsh’s translation.――Hug, II. § 85, original; § 80, translation.)

The Fathers also made similar blunders about the nature of Saul’s trade. They call him
σκυτοτομος, (skutotomos,) “a skin-cutter,” as well as σκηνορραφος, “a tent-maker.” This was
because they were entirely ignorant of the material used for the manufacture of tents; for,
living themselves in the civilized regions of Greece, Italy, &c. they knew nothing of the
habitations of the Nomadic tent-dwellers. Chrysostom in particular, calls him “one who
worked in skins.”

Fabricius gives some valuable illustrations of this point. (Bibliotheca Graeca, IV. p. 795,
bb.) He quotes Cotelerius, (ad. Apost. Const. II. 63,) Erasmus, &c. (ad Acts xviii. 3,) and
Schurzfleisch, (in diss. de Paulo, &c.) who brings sundry passages from Dio Chrysostom
and Libanius, to prove that there were many in Cilicia who worked in leather, as he says; in
support of which he quotes Martial, (epigraph xiv. 114,) alluding to “udones cilicii,” or “cilician
cloaks,” (used to keep off rain, as water-proof,)――not knowing that this word, cilicium, was
the name of a very close and stout cloth, from the goat’s hair, equally valuable as a covering
for a single person, and for the habitation of a whole family. In short, Martial’s passage
shows that the Cilician camlet was used like the modern camlet,――for cloaks. Fabricius
himself seems to make no account of this leather notion of Schurzfleisch; for immediately
after, he states (what I can not find on any other authority) that “even at this day, as late
books of travels testify, variegated cloths are exported from Cilicia.” This is certainly true of
Angora in Asia Minor, north-west of Cilicia, (Modern Traveler, III. p. 339,) and may be true of
Cilicia itself. Fabricius notices 2 Corinthians v. 1: and xii. 9, as containing figures drawn from
Saul’s trade.

his education.

But this was not destined to be the most important occupation of

Saul’s life. Even his parents had nobler objects in view for him, and
evidently devoted him to this handicraft, only in conformity with those
ancient Jewish usages which had the force of law on every true
Israelite, whether rich or poor; and accordingly he was sent, while
yet in his youth, away from his home in Tarsus, to Jerusalem, the
fountain of religious and legal knowledge to all the race of Judah and
Benjamin, throughout the world. To what extent his general
education had been carried in Tarsus, is little known; but he had
acquired that fluency in the Greek, which is displayed in his writings,
though contaminated with many of the provincialisms of Cilicia, and
more especially with the barbarisms of Hebrew usage. Living in daily
intercourse, both in the way of business and friendship, with the
active Grecians of that thriving city, and led, no doubt, by his own
intellectual character and tastes, to the occasional cultivation of
those classics which were the delight of his Gentile acquaintances,
he acquired a readiness and power in the use of the Greek
language, and a familiarity with the favorite writers of the Asian
Hellenes, that in the providence of God most eminently fitted him for
the sphere to which he was afterwards devoted, and was the true
ground of his wonderful acceptability to the highly literary people
among whom his greatest and most successful labors were
performed, and to whom all of his epistles, but two, were written. All
these writings show proofs of such an acquaintance with Greek, as
is here inferred from his opportunities in education. His well-known
quotations also from Menander and Epimenides, and more
especially his happy impromptu reference in his discourse at Athens,
to the line from his own fellow-Cilician, Aratus, are instances of a
very great familiarity with the classics, and are thrown out in such an
unstudied, off-hand way, as to imply a ready knowledge of these
writers. But all these were, no doubt, learned in the mere occasional
manner already alluded to in connection with the reputation and
literary character of Tarsus. He was devoted by all the considerations
of ancestral pride and religious zeal to the study of “a classic, the
best the world has ever seen,――the noblest that has ever honored
and dignified the language of mortals.”

his removal to jerusalem.

Strabo, in speaking of the remarkable literary and philosophical

zeal of the refined inhabitants of Tarsus, says that “after having well
laid the foundations of literature and science in their own schools at
home, it was usual for them to resort to those in other places, in
order to zealously pursue the cultivation of their minds still further,”
by the varied modes and opportunities presented in different schools
throughout the Hellenic world,――a noble spirit of literary enterprise,
accordant with the practice of the most ancient philosophers, and
like the course also pursued by the modern German scholars, many
of whom go from one university to another, to enjoy the peculiar
advantages afforded by each in some particular department. It was
therefore, only in a noble emulation of the example of his heathen
fellow-townsmen, in the pursuit of profane knowledge, that Saul left
the city of his birth and his father’s house, to seek a deeper
knowledge of the sacred sources of Hebrew learning, in the capital
of the faith. This removal to so great a distance, for such a purpose,
evidently implies the possession of considerable wealth in the family
of Saul; for a literary sojourn of that kind, in a great city, could not but
be attended with very considerable expense as well as trouble.

his teacher.

Saul having been thus endowed with a liberal education at home,

and with the principles of the Jewish faith, as far as his age would
allow,――went up to Jerusalem to enjoy the instruction of Gamaliel.
There is every reason to believe that this was Gamaliel the elder,
grandson of Hillel, and son of Simeon, (probably the same, who, in
his old age, took the child Jesus in his arms,) and father of another
Simeon, in whose time the temple was destroyed; for the Rabbinical
writings give a minute account of him, as connected with all these
persons. This Gamaliel succeeded his ancestors in the rank which
was then esteemed the highest; this was the office of “head of the
college,” otherwise called “Prince of the Jewish senate.” Out of
respect to this most eminent Father of Hebrew learning, as it is
recorded, Onkelos, the renowned Chaldee paraphrast, burned at his
funeral, seventy pounds of incense, in honor to the high rank and
learning of the deceased. This eminent teacher was at first not ill-
disposed towards the apostles, who, he thought, ought to be left to
their own fate; being led to this moderate and reasonable course,
perhaps, by the circumstance that the Sadducees, whom he hated,
were most active in their persecution. The sound sense and humane
wisdom that mark his sagely eloquent opinion, so wonderful in that
bloody time, have justly secured him the admiration and respect of
all Christian readers of the record; and not without regret would they
learn, that the after doings of his life, unrecorded by the sacred
historian, yet on the testimony of others, bear witness against him as
having changed from this wise principle of action. If there is any
ground for the story which Maimonides tells, it would seem, that
when Gamaliel saw the new heretical sect multiplying in his own
days, and drawing away the Israelites from the Mosaic forms, he,
together with the Senate, whose President he was, gave his utmost
endeavors to crush the followers of Christ, and composed a form of
prayer, by which God was besought to exterminate these heretics;
which was to be connected to the usual forms of prayer in the Jewish
liturgy. This story of Maimonides, if it is adopted as true, on so slight
grounds, may be reconciled with the account given by Luke, in two
ways. First, Gamaliel may have thought that the apostles and their
successors, although heretics, were not to be put down by human
force, or by the contrivances of human ingenuity, but that the whole
matter should be left to the hidden providence of God, and that their
extermination should be obtained from God by prayers. Or,
second,――to make a more simple and rational supposition,――he
may have been so struck by the boldness of the apostles, and by the
evidence of the miracle performed by them, as to express a milder
opinion on them at that particular moment; but afterwards may have
formed a harsher judgment, when, contrary to all expectation, he
saw the wonderful growth of Christianity, and heard with wrath and
uncontrollable indignation, the stern rebuke of Stephen. But these
loose relics of tradition, offered on such very suspicious authority as
that of a Jew of the ages when Christianity had become so odious to
Judaism by its triumphs, may without hesitation be rejected as wholly
inconsistent with the noble spirit of Gamaliel, as expressed in the
clear, impartial account of Luke; and both of the suppositions here
offered by others, to reconcile sacred truth with mere falsehood, are
thus rendered entirely unnecessary.

At the feet of this Gamaliel, then, was Saul brought up. (Acts xxii. 3.) It has been
observed on this passage, by learned commentators, that this expression refers to the
fashion followed by students, of sitting and lying down on the ground or on mats, at the feet
of their teacher, who sat by himself on a higher place. And indeed so many are the traces of
this fashion among the recorded labors of the Hebrews, that it does not seem possible to
call it in question. The labors of Scaliger in his “Elenchus Trihaeresii,” have brought to light
many illustrations of the point; besides which another is offered in a well-known passage
from ‫ פרקי אבות‬Pirke Aboth, or “Fragments of the Fathers.” Speaking of the wise, it is said,
“Make thyself dusty in the dust of their feet,”――‫――הוי מתאבק בעפר רגליהם‬meaning that the
young student is to be a diligent hearer at the feet of the wise;――thus raising a truly
“learned dust,” if the figure may be so minutely carried out. The same thing is farther
illustrated by a passage which Buxtorf has given in his Lexicon of the Talmud, in the portion
entitled ‫( ברכית‬Berachoth,) ‫“ מנעו בניכם מן ההגיון והושיבום בין ברכי תלמידי חכמים‬Take away your
sons from the study of the Bible, and make them sit between the knees of the disciples of
the wise;” which is equivalent to a recommendation of oral, as superior to written instruction.
The same principle, of varying the mode in which the mind receives knowledge, is
recognized in modern systems of education, with a view to avoid the self-conceit and
intolerant pride which solitary study is apt to engender, as well as because, from the living
voice of the teacher, the young scholar learns in that practical, simple mode which is most
valuable and efficient, as it is that, in which alone all his knowledge of the living and
speaking world must be obtained. It should be observed, however, that Buxtorf seems to
have understood this passage rather differently from Witsius, whose construction is followed
in the translation given above. Buxtorf, following the ordinary meaning of ‫( הגיבן‬heg-yon,)
seems to prefer the sense of “meditation.” He rejects the common translation――“study of
the Bible,” as altogether irreligious. “In hoc sensu, praeceptum impium est.” He says that
other Glosses of the passage give it the meaning of “boyish talk,” (garritu puerorum.) But
this is a sense perfectly contradictory to all usage of the word, and was evidently invented
only to avoid the seemingly irreligious character of the literal version. But why may not all
difficulties be removed by a reference to the primary signification, which is “solitary
meditation,” in opposition to “instruction by others?”

We have in the gospel history itself, also, the instance of Mary. (Luke x. 39.) The
passage in Mark iii. 32, “The multitude sat down around him,” farther illustrates this usage.
There is an old Hebrew tradition, mentioned with great reverence by Maimonides, to this
effect. “From the days of Moses down to Rabban Gamaliel, they always studied the law,
standing; but after Rabban Gamaliel was dead, weakness descended on the world, and
they studied the law, sitting.” (Witsius.)

his jewish opinions.

Jerusalem was the seat of what may be called the great Jewish
University. The Rabbins or teachers, united in themselves, not
merely the sources of Biblical and theological learning, but also the
whole system of instruction in that civil law, by which their nation
were still allowed to be governed, with only some slight exceptions
as to the right of punishment. There was no distinction, in short,
between the professions of divinity and law, the Rabbins being
teachers of the whole Mosaic system, and those who entered on a
course of study under them, aiming at the knowledge of both those
departments of learning, which, throughout the western nations, are
now kept, for the most part, entirely distinct. Saul was therefore a
student both of theology and law, and entered himself as a hearer of
the lectures of one, who may, in modern phrase, be styled the most
eminent professor in the great Hebrew university of Jerusalem. From
him he learned the law and the Jewish traditional doctrines, as
illustrated and perfected by the Fathers of the ♦Pharisaic order. His
steady energy and resolute activity were here all made available to
the very complete attainment of the mysteries of knowledge; and the
success with which he prosecuted his studies may be best
appreciated by a minute examination of his writings, which
everywhere exhibit indubitable marks of a deep and critical
knowledge of all the details of Jewish theology and law. He shows
himself to have been deeply versed in all the standard modes of
explaining the Scriptures among the Hebrews,――by
allegory,――typology, accommodation and tradition. Yet though thus
ardently drinking the streams of Biblical knowledge from this great
fountain-head, he seems to have been very far from imbibing the
mild and merciful spirit of his great teacher, as it had been so
eminently displayed in his sage decision on the trial of the apostles.
The acquisition of knowledge, even under such an instructor, was, in
Saul, attended with the somewhat common evils to which a young
mind rapidly advanced in dogmatical learning, is naturally
liable,――a bitter, denunciatory intolerance of any opinions contrary
to his own,――a spiteful feeling towards all doctrinal opponents, and
a disposition to punish speculative errors as actual crimes. All these
common faults were very remarkably developed in Saul, by that
uncommon harshness and fierceness by which he was so strongly
characterized; and his worst feelings broke out with all their fury
against the rising heretics, who, without any regular education, were
assuming the office of religious teachers, and were understood to be
seducing the people from their allegiance and due respect to the
qualified scholars of the law. The occasion on which these dark
religious passions first exhibited themselves in decided action
against the Christians, was the murder of Stephen, of which the
details have already been fully given in that part of the Life of Peter
which is connected with it. Of those who engaged in the previous
disputes with the proto-martyr, the members of the Cilician
synagogue are mentioned among others; and with these Saul would
very naturally be numbered; for, residing at a great distance from his
native province, he would with pleasure seek the company of those