EUTYCHUS ("Bysteros"), - The adolescent raised from the dead by St. Paul at Troas (Acts 20:9-12). With the imprudence characteristic of his age (he is first called νεανός, V. 9, then 122, V. 12), he was sitting in the window embrasure of a third-story room where Paul was speaking to the community gathered for the Sunday "breaking of the bread." Overcome by sleep during Paul’s prolonged nighttime discourse, he fell to the ground. The Apostle, repeating the gesture of Elijah (1 Kings 17:27) and Elisha (2 Kings 4:34), bent over the lifeless body and restored him to life.
The Apostle’s words, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is still in him” (v. 10), which may also be a form of modest understatement upon seeing that life had returned, have been mistakenly taken as evidence that the miracle was merely the crowd’s or narrator’s interpretation. Luke, an eyewitness (the “we” passage), with the precision of a physician, emphasizes the severity of the fall and the death that was easily confirmed. For this reason, the community enthusiastically led the living Eutychus to Paul at the moment of his departure.