In response to my brief tracts on the contrast between the THOU-God and the YOU-God, I received the following response from a distinguished Anglican gentleman who is in holy orders.
"Don't you remember that Jesus brought the revolution with "Abba, Father." The intimate form. There is a place for the formal. There is also a place for the informal, even in liturgy."
In response, let me say that I do not remember that Jesus is the cause of the 1960s revolution in the way that the Churches address God in worship. I see the cause as the Zeitgeist, which in part I am told comes from God's enemy called Satan! But I take it that he means that, from the 1960s, the church began to talk to God as people talked to each other on the street, and this innovation was similar to the way in which Jesus talked to God, for he took a key word from the language used in the Jewish home and made it into prayer language.
But let us try to determine precisely what he is saying.
He refers to "the revolution" and by this intends my contention that the 1960s brought a revolution not only in culture & society but also in the addressing of God in public worship. Nowhere before that revolutionary decade had any main-line/old-line church used "You" of God in public prayer and certainly not in written texts that we call liturgy. The THOU-God reigned supreme in all God-language in Bible translations used, in hymnody sung and in liturgies and prayers addressed to heaven until the 1960s. Then from 1970's the YOU-God took over.
He refers to intimacy. In English there is a second person singular, THOU, and a second person plural, YOU. Certainly from the 17th century (at least) onwards YOU was used both for singular and plural as it is today [for evidence see the large Oxford English Dictionary]. However, as you can see in Shakespeare's plays for example, THOU is the language of intimacy and familiarity in the 17th century and onwards (my father's generation in Yorkshire used "thou" in such a way in the family in the 20th century). So the language of intimacy in English is traditionally the "Thou" form - " I love thee!" So it may be said that if we want intimacy with God we should be revolutionary and, rejecting the common "you" of today, dare to use Thou."
But let us look at the word "Abba" upon which my good friend builds his case. This is not an English word, not even a Hebrew or Greek word. It is an Aramaic word and it appears three times in the New Testament without translation -- once on the lips of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:36 where it means "my dear Father" or "O dear Father" ) and twice from the pen of Paul (Romans 8:15 & Galatians 4:6). In the latter two cases it is joined as a total expression to the Greek definite article "ho" and the Greek noun, "Pater" (thus literally, "Abba, the Father"), and this combination suggests use in this form in early Christian worship. (See further J. Jeremias, "The Prayers of Jesus," pp.11-65.)
Certainly in contrast to the rabbis of his time, Jesus was revolutionary in addressing God by this Aramaic word "Abba" ["my dear father"] taken from the language of the intimate Jewish Palestinian family circle -- specifically the way a boy spoke to his father when he felt close to him. So "Abba" is a way of speaking that presupposes an intimate relation between the speaker and the person who is addressed, and it also at the same time - given the culture of the OT & Judaism - presupposes an intimacy within a patriarchal order (and thus includes profound respect as well). Thus "Abba" as a form of address is both intimate and respectful. It was never merely a familiar term, but always reverent in its intimacy. It was never sloppy and sentimental but solid, respectful even as it was intimate.
The first Christians heard Jesus pray "Abba" and it so impressed them that even when they were using Greek (the language spoken through much of the Roman Empire and used by the early Church) they joined "Abba" to the Greek "ho Pater" to establish that they were praying in the Name of Jesus to God his Father - thus the usage preserved by Paul (who understood Aramaic, Hebrew & Greek) in Galatians and Romans.
So the usage "Abba, the Father" or "Abba, O Father" by Christians is based upon grace and mercy that we, sinners, can address the God and "Abba" of Jesus as "Abba, O Father." So we are saying, "Our dear Father" or the like. Let us remember that Jesus alone, the only-begotten and unique Son, can truly say "My Father." He taught us to pray "Our Father." not "My Father." For "in, with and through him" we are related to his Father as our Father.
Certainly we can and, in grace, should pray "Abba, ho Pater" in both the fixed portions of formal Liturgy and informal Prayer Sessions within Liturgy. Or if we are not congregations that use no fixed liturgy then in our prayers and in our hymnody. And when it comes to the use of the pronoun for the "Abba" who is our Father then if we strictly follow the New Testament it will have to be the most accurate form of the second person singular available to us which is THOU [remember that in doctrine the Father is one Father and thus singular, even as the Trinity is One God (thus
singular) even while being Three Persons].
So I suggest that the use by our Lord Jesus Christ of "Abba" points to exactly the opposite to what my good friend believes it points. It does not in any way shape or form support the revolution of the 1960s but undergirds the language of prayer in the KJV, RSV and the BCP. As John Wesley expressed to the children at his Kingsmead School in 1760: " We say 'Thou' to God and 'you' to man." And that is how it is in the 4,000 hymns from the Wesley brothers!
Let us in public worship and in ex tempore reverent prayer address the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in the way that Jesus taught us, "Abba, ho Pater." Thus "Our Father, the Father of Jesus, hallowed by thy name!"
August 22nd, 2002
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon
Minister of Christ Church, Biddulph Moor,
England & Vice-President and Emissary-at-Large
of The Prayer Book Society of America
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