ALOGI ('ΑΛΌΓΟΙ'). - A sect known to us from St. Epiphanius (Haer., 51, 1-35; PG 41, 888-953), who imposed this name on it (ἄλογος, "without the Logos") accusing it of having rejected the Logos. Probably using as his source the Syntagma of Hippolytus, Epiphanius reports that, basing themselves on internal criticism, they denied the Johannine origin of the 4th Gospel (because it is disordered and divergent from the Synoptics) and of the Apocalypse (because it is incomprehensible and falsely prophetic), attributing them to Cerinthus. An incoherent thesis (the 4th Gospel refutes Cerinthus!), for which reason Epiphanius ironically echoes the title of ἄλογος ("without understanding"), and at length rebuts the objections (loc. cit., 4-31).
It appears that Philastrius (Haer., 60; PL 12, 1174) designates the A. by mentioning the heretics who reject the 4th Gospel and attribute the Apocalypse to Cerinthus. St. Irenaeus already condemned certain adversaries (whose name he does not give) of the 4th Gospel because in it is contained "the promise of the Spirit," while they "denied the continuance of the prophetic spirit" (Adv. Haer., III, 11, 9; PG 7, 891), so that "sinning against the Spirit of God, they fall into the unforgivable sin," an expression that St. Epiphanius repeats for the A. (Haer., 51, 35). Only Epiphanius, however (neither Irenaeus nor Philastrius), imputes to them Christological heresies, 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 adversaries of the Montanists, who abused the Johannine writings, which contain "the promise of the Spirit."
The anti-Montanist priest Gaius (v.), who rejected the Apocalypse attributing it to Cerinthus, is considered an A. by V. Rose and P. Ladeuze; the latter even regards him as the only A. who ever existed; but against this thesis (to which O. Bardenhewer accedes, Geschichte der althirchl. Literatur, I, Freiburg i. Br. 1913, p. 434) P. de Labriolle rose up, La crise montaniste, Paris 1913, pp. 190-202, 383-85.
After 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 fleshed out by A. Bludau: the A. were Western anti-Montanists (different from those mentioned by Irenaeus), who formed a group of some importance after Gaius had divulged his arguments against the Johannine writings; they denied no dogma (neither the divinity of the Son nor of the Holy Spirit), but merely considered the 4th Gospel and the Apocalypse spurious, for exegetical reasons. But Epiphanius, for whom the repudiation of the Johannine Gospel, in the dogmatic struggles of the 4th century, implied the exclusion of the Logos, and who from the sources at his disposal could draw nothing certain, considered the A., also because it seemed that they had denied "the Spirit," as Monarchians "wholly estranged from the teaching of the truth" (Epiphanius, loc. cit., 3).