In the extracanonical story about Paul and Thecla in Iconium, Paul’s host Onesiphorus (cf. 2 Tim 1:16; 4:19) is so radical in abandoning the concerns of this world that he camps out in a tomb without the means to feed his hungry children (Acts Paul 3.23–25). Where did he learn such a radical notion of voluntary poverty, and what is the reader supposed to make of it when nothing else in the story teaches the same ideal? This paper uses Kathryn Tanner’s theory of culture to argue that the Acts of Paul presents the abandonment of all personal earthly possessions as a subcultural ideal so established in early Christian culture that it can be taken for granted rather than argued for.