"Anthusa's son John became a great Christian leader, so renowned for his preaching that he earned the name Chrysostom, meaning "Golden-Mouthed..."
Anthusa, the mother of St. John Chrysostom, devoted her life to her son. He became one of the great preachers of Christianity. Anthusa lived in Antioch, the starting point of Paul's three missionary journeys. Her husband Secundus, an illustrious man in the Imperial Army of Syria, died when their son John was an infant, leaving her widowed when she was about twenty years old.
Although she had the means to give her son a good education, she dreaded bringing him up amid the corruptions of Antioch. But the burden of rearing him, she later declared, was lightened for her by God's support and the joy of seeing her husband's image reproduced in her child.
Her chief endeavor was to nurture her son in the highest qualities of Christian character. In his formative years she taught him to love the Bible, and he later spoke of the influence of an early and intimate acquaintance with the Scriptures. From this, he said, came his enthusiasm for the good, his moral energy, his aversion to ostentation, his zeal for justice and truth and his steadfast faith.
Anthusa had inherited the literary spirit of the Greek philosophers and poets and transmitted much of her classical knowledge to her son. It was also her guidance that started him on his career as preacher and expositor of the Bible, for she inspired him to study theology under the noted Diodore of Tarsus.
Later, John said that "the Bible was the fountain for watering the soul." Though he reveled in his classical education, he drank still more deeply of the things of the spirit from his mother at
home.
Anthusa devoted her life to her son, who became one of the greatest preachers of Christianity.
(All information above from: "Great Women of the Christian Faith" By: Edith Deen)
"Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6
“What is the ultimate purpose of a “phileo” kind of love? It is nothing less than the salvation of our children’s souls. This is the chief end of mothering. Our goal is not that our children be happy, fulfilled, and successful. Granted we may desire these things for them. But our highest objective should be that our children would repent from their sins, put their trust in Jesus Christ, and reflect the gospel to the world around them.” – ~Carolyn Mahaney~
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