Bible Dictionaries
Abba

　　Abba is the emphatic form of the Aram. word for ‘father’ (see Dalman, Aram. Gram. p. 98, for ὁ πατήρ is subjoined to Ἀπολλύων, Διἀβολος). Thayer, in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols)κύριε), it is also expressed by such phrases as i. iii. 23) suggests that the phrase is due to the shorter or Lucan form of the Lord’s Prayer, and that the early Christians repeated the first word in the intensity of their devotion, coupling a Hellenistic rendering with the Aramaic Abba. He argues that the absence of such a phrase as ὁ Κύριος ἐγγός [Philippians 4:5], was also used; cf. Did. 10. 5, where ‘Maran atha’ and ‘Amen’ close a public prayer); and (4.) that our Lord Himself, though this cannot be said to be established beyond doubt, used the double form in pronouncing the sacred Name, which was invoked in His prayer.

　　In conclusion, it should be noted that, while the phrase is associated with the specially solemn occasion of the Gethsemane agony, where our Lord is reported by St. Mark to have used it, both examples of its use in the Pauline writings convey a similar impression of solemnity as connected with the Christian believer’s assurance of sonship-and sonship (let it be noted) not in the general sense in which all humanity may be described as children of God, but in the intimate and spiritual connotation belonging to , Dict. of Christ and the Gospels xx. [1909] 358, and the authorities cited above.

　　R. Martin Pope.