Theophylact of Ohrid

But Pilate did not agree, and remained of his former opinion. Therefore he also says: "What I have written, I have written." However, something else important is also arranged here. Since the three crosses, buried in the earth, would lie in one and the same place, so that it would not remain unknown which of them was the Cross of the Lord, it was arranged so that it alone had the title and inscription, and by this sign could be recognized. For the crosses of the robbers did not have inscriptions.

Commentary on John ↗

Augustine of Hippo

The magi were from the Gentiles. Pilate too was a Gentile. They saw a star in the sky; he wrote a title on the tree. Both, however, were looking for or acknowledging the king, not of the Gentiles but of the Jews. Thus already there was a prefiguring of what the Lord himself spoke about later, "Many will come from the east and the west and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom will go into outer darkness." The magi, you see, had come from the east, Pilate from the west. …

Sermon 201.2 ↗

Thomas Aquinas

2424 Secondly, we read that Pilate was insistent on keeping the title. He refused to change it because he wanted to disgrace them. He said, What I have written I have written. This did not happen by chance; it had been arranged by God and predicted long before. Certain Psalms have as a title, "Do not Destroy. …

Commentary on John ↗

Bonaventure

Pilate answered. Here is set forth the affirmation or approval of the title against the malice of the Jews: whence Pilate does not erase it but approves it: What I have written, I have written. What I have written, truthfully, I have written, indelibly, as an irrevocable truth. Augustine: "If what Pilate wrote cannot be corrupted, can what Truth has said be corrupted?"

Commentary on John, Chapter 19 ↗