The first direct mention of the work comes from Arethas of Caesarea (c. 860–935), a bishop who was a great collector of manuscripts. At some date before 907 he sent a volume of the "Meditations" to Demetrius, Archbishop of Heracleia, with a letter saying: "I have had for some time an old copy of the Emperor Marcus' most profitable book, so old indeed that it is altogether falling to pieces.… This I have had copied and am able to hand down to posterity in its new dress." Arethas also mentions the work in marginal notes ("scholia") to books by Lucian and Dio Chrysostom where he refers to passages in the "Treatise to Himself" (), and it was this title which the book bore in the manuscript from which the first printed edition was made in the 16th century. Arethas' own copy has now vanished, but it is thought to be the likely ancestor of the surviving manuscripts.