Once certain monks came to Abba Agathon to test him, falsely accusing him of being a fornicator, a speaker of nonsense, a proud man, and a heretic. He accepted all their accusations as true except for their assertion that he was a heretic. Amazed by his humility, they left edified. Abba Agathon once admonished a brother monk for desiring to take a single discarded green pea on the roadside. He told this monk to never take anything that wasn't his. Likewise, a brother once came to him with a piece of nitre from a tree he found on the road. The abba admonished him also and commanded him to return that which he had taken. Abba Agathon charged his disciples to sell their good in the market for the first price that the buyer asked for. Similarly, they would buy goods at the first price presented to them rather than negotiating. Once Abba Agathon encountered a sick man on the road to the market. He took him to a cell and paid for his rent for four months until the sick man was well again. Another time Abba Agathon saw a paralytic on the roadside. The man asked to be carried to the market, and thus the abba did. Upon request from the man, the abba used all of the proceeds from his sale at the market to buy such and such things for the man. When they had finished, he brought him back to where found him as he had asked. Suddenly, the man spoke to Abba Agathon telling him that he had divine virtues, and disappeared. Alas, it was not a paralytic, but an angel who had come to test him. In
The Prologue of Ohrid the story is related of how a monk complimented Abba Agathon of a small knife that he used to cut brushwood. Upon hearing the compliment, the abba immediately gave the monk the knife as a gift. ==
Troparion (Tone 8) ==