The understanding that an “Endtyrant” known as the Antichrist will appear in the last days has been a long-held tradition in Christendom. The Antichrist is posited to be a human who seeks to replace Christ and ushers in a great persecution of the church until he finally succumbs to God’s judgment. This paper begins by tracking the earliest appearances of this tradition in the church fathers and how they formed their vision of this “Endtyrant.” The term ἀντίχριστος first appears in 1 and 2 John and then in Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians. It is unclear in Polycarp understood ἀντίχριστος to be more than a designation for a collective of individuals who with the moniker rather than an “Endtyrant.” The writings of Irenaeus makes it clear that an “Endtyrant” should be in view based upon a matrix of passages which define the antichristological profile. A profile which is given a fuller explanation by Irenaeus’s student, Hippolytus who wrote a treatise on the Antichrist. The antichristological thread can then be followed through several of the church fathers (e.g. Cyprian, Athanasius, John of Damascus) as demonstrated by Lorein’s study “The Antichrist and the Fathers and Their Exegetical Basis.” Following the summary of the earliest traditions is an examination of the modern scholarship pertaining to “antichristology” with a focus on the most recent works of Jenks, Lorien, Peerbolte, and Kusio whose insights contribute to an understanding of how the Antichrist tradition formed in the early church. Each of these authors places the Danielic texts, the Olivet Discourse, 2 Thess 2, and the beast passages from Revelation as the primary texts from which the early church derived their “antichristology.” The next section seeks to untangle these passages which have been employed to create the Antichrist profile with an end to demonstrate the importance of texts being understood within their own contexts which in turn may disqualify them from the “Endtyrant” paradigm. The final section of the paper will then explore how ἀντίχριστος is possibly employed in the Johannine epistles to point away from the idea of an “Endtyrant” and, instead, is used to demonstrate that there will be many who stand in opposition to Christ. This can be evidenced by several interpretive points in 1 Jn 2:18. The conjunctive phrase “καὶ νῦν” could best be understood as conveying a contrary force. If this is the case, then John is advocating against the concept of an “Endtyrant” and proposing that ἀντίχριστος represents any individual who stands in opposition to Christ. This can be further intimated with the wordplay on the ἀντί- prefix which can mean “instead of” or “against.” If John is speaking contrary to the idea of an “Endtyrant” known as the Antichrist, then the verse could be translated as “You have heard there is [one coming in the place of] Christ, but contrary to this, many have become [in opposition to] Christ.” This conclusion replaces the “Endtyrant” concept with the idea that many who are opposed to the new order are indeed antichrists.