John 20:11-13

“ But Mary was standing near the sepulchre, weeping at the entrance; 12, and, as she wept, she stooped down to look into the sepulchre; and she sees two angels, clothed in white, sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet, in the place where the body of Jesus had lain; 13, and they say to her, Woman, why weepest thou? She says to them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. ”

Peter and John withdraw, one of them at least already believing; Mary remains and weeps, and as one does when vainly seeking for a precious object, she looks ever anew at the place where it seems to her that He should be. There is nothing to prevent our taking the present participle καθεζομένους, sitting, in its strictly grammatical sense. She perceives the two angels at the moment of their appearance. This fact does not contradict the earlier appearance of an angel to the women who had first visited the tomb. The angels are not immovable and visible after the manner of stone statues.

Mary answers the question of the celestial visitors as simply as if she had been conversing with human beings, so completely is she preoccupied with a single idea: to recover her Master. Who could have invented this feature of the story? Weiss, without any reason, sees here a reminiscence of the appearance of the angel to the women, which has slipped into the wrong place.