Tae Hun Kim, «The Anarthrous ui(o\j qeou= in Mark 15,39 and the Roman Imperial Cult», Vol. 79 (1998) 221-241

This article points up evidence by which the language of the Roman imperial cult might help make clearer what a reader of Mark's Gospel might understand when the centurion (Mark 15,39) refers to Jesus as ui(o\j qeou=. Knowing how an audience familiar with this cult language would react, Mark intentionally speaks of Jesus as ui(o\j qeou= at 1,1, as well as at 15,39.

before his death, because Cicero in the second Philippic, which was probably written around October of 44 BCE, calls Antony "the priest (flamen) to divine Julius (divo Iulio)" referring to a decree made before Caesar’s death¹⁹. Others have associated the first use of the title with the games which Octavian gave in honor of Caesar in July of 44²⁰. In either case it seems obvious that Gaius Julius Caesar was deified shortly after his death and this provided Octavian (later known as Augustus) the ground to claim that he was "son of god", being the heir and adopted son of the divine Julius. Divine epithets given to Gaius Julius call him "savior," "benefactor," and "god," but it is remarkable that neither qeou= ui(o\j nor divi filius can be found among them. On one occasion, Gaius Julius was praised as be to\n a)po\   1Arewj kai\    )Afpodei/th\j qeo\n e)pifanh\j kai\ koino\n tou= a)nqrwi/nou bi/ou swth/r (SIG 760) = "the manifest god from Mars and Aphrodite, and universal savior of human life." It is interesting that Gaius Julius was never called "son of god" even though he claimed that his family descended from Venus²¹. Since his father Gaius Caesar was never deified, perhaps he could not have had the title even if he had wanted it. The complete absence of the epithet divi filius which was later made so popular by his adopted son-nephew is remarkable nonetheless, because it strongly implies that the title was not present in the tradition of the Roman state cult prior to the time of Augustus.