ALOGI ('Αλόγοι'). — A sect known to us from s. Epiphanius (Haer., 51, 1-35; PG 41, 888-953), who gave it this name (ἄλογος, “without Logos”), accusing it of having rejected the Logos. Probably using Hippolytus’ Syntagma as his source, Epiphanius reports that, on the basis of internal criticism, they denied the Johannine origin of the Fourth Gospel (because it was disordered and divergent from the Synoptics) and of the Apocalypse (because it was incomprehensible and falsely prophetic), attributing both to Cerinthus. An incoherent thesis (the Fourth Gospel refutes Cerinthus!), for which reason Epiphanius ironically echoes the title ἄλογος (“without understanding”) and gives a lengthy rebuttal of the objections (loc. cit., 4-31).
It appears that Filastrius (Haer., 60; PL 12, 1174) designates the a. when mentioning the heretics who reject the Fourth Gospel and attribute the Apocalypse to Cerinthus. S. Irenaeus had already condemned certain adversaries (whose name he does not give) of the Fourth Gospel because it contains “the promise of the Spirit,” whereas they “denied the persistence of the prophetic spirit” (Adv. Haer., III, 11, 9; PG 7, 891), so that “by sinning against the Spirit of God, they fall into the unforgivable sin,” an expression that s. Epiphanius repeats of the a. (Haer., 51, 35). Only Epiphanius, however (neither Irenaeus nor Filastrius), imputes Christological heresies to them, making them the first Monarchians and the first Apneumatics or Pneumatomachi; indeed, he calls the Monarchian Theodore of Byzantium (late 2nd century) “a shred of the a.” (Haer., 54, 1).
The a. appear in Asia (at Thyatira: Epiphanius, Haer., 51, 33) around 170 as opponents of the Montanists, who abused the Johannine writings, containing “the promise of the Spirit.”
The anti-Montanist presbyter Caius (v.), who rejected the Apocalypse, attributing it to Cerinthus, is considered an a. by V. Rose and P. Ladeuze; the latter indeed regards him as the only a. ever to have existed; but P. de Labriolle rose against this thesis (which O. Bardenhewer accepted, Geschichte der althirchl. Literatur, I, Freiburg i. Br. 1913, p. 434), in La crise montaniste, Paris 1913, pp. 190-202, 383-85.
Following T. Zahn and A. Harnack, A. Camerlynck sees in the a. not heretics, but merely critics who expressed doubts about the canon of the New Testament.
This thesis, accepted by Tixeront, was taken up and elaborated by A. Bludau: the a. were Western anti-Montanists (different from those mentioned by Irenaeus), who formed a group of some importance after Caius had publicized his arguments against the Johannine writings; they denied no dogma (neither the divinity of the Son nor that of the Holy Spirit), but merely considered the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse spurious for exegetical reasons. But Epiphanius, for whom rejection of the Johannine Gospel, in the dogmatic controversies of the 4th century, implied the exclusion of the Logos, and who could derive nothing certain from the sources available to him, considered the a. Monarchians, also because they seemed to have denied “the Spirit,” “entirely estranged from the teaching of truth” (Epiphanius, loc. cit., 3).