Hugh Nibley in his article, "The Early Christian Prayer Circle," he shares some quotes from early writings and statements made about the prayer circle:
Since the purpose of the prayer circle was to achieve total unity of minds and hearts, "keeping in mind the absent ones," it was natural to include the dead as well as the living in remembrance. One prayed for himself "and also for all my relatives and close associates (consanguinitate vel familiaritate) and for all the Saints of the Church of God, as well as for those who died in the faith, who are recorded in my Book of Remembrance."
"We pray for ourselves, our brothers and sisters . . . and for those who have paid their due to death, whose names we have written down or whose names appear on the holy altar, and all who stand in the circle whose faith and devotion are known to thee.” (Quote is from Cabrol, "Diptyques," 1061; cf. Stegmüller, "Diptychon," 1140. The names in the diptych show "by this meeting of individuals the close bond of communion and love which united all the members of the church." Cabrol, "Diptyques," 1049; 1061—62.)
But in the earliest times the lists of the living and the dead were kept strictly separate "in two separate books." (Stegnifiller, "Diptychon," 1146; cf. 1144—45.)
For the work for the dead was something special and apart. "We remember the dead," wrote Epiphanius in the fourth century, "(1) by performing ritual prayers, (2) by carrying out certain ordinances, and (3) by making certain special arrangements (oikonomias)." (Epiphanius, Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies) 3, 77; 7, 21, in PG 42:649—52.)
In the Clementine Recognitions when Clement asks Peter, "Shall those be wholly deprived of the kingdom of heaven who died before Christ's coming?" he receives a cautious answer: "You force me, Clement, to make public things that are not to be discussed. But I see no objection to telling you as much as we are allowed to." He tells him of the spirits of the dead "retained in good and happy places" but refuses to explain how they are to be redeemed. (Clementine Recognitions I, 52, in PG 1:1236; also in Hugh W. Nibley, The World and the Prophets (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1962), 153; 3rd ed. (1987), 168.)
Likewise when Mary asks the Lord on behalf of the apostles how "a good man who has completed all the ordinances" may save an undeserving relative who has died, she is told that the good man must repeat all the same ordinances again while naming "the soul of such-and-such a person, on whom I am thinking my heart (mind)," whom he thus mentally accompanies through "the proper number of circles (kykloi) in the transformations (metaboliai), as he becomes baptized and sealed with the signs (psephoi) of the kingdom . . . and so advances." (Pistis Sophia, pp. 325—26 (322—23).)
What these circles are the reader may decide for himself. "We remember not only the saints," writes the Areopagite, "but our parents and friends, rejoicing in their condition in the refrigerium and praying that we too may finish this life worthily. We all join together in this." (Anonymous (attributed to Origen), Commentarius in Job (Commentary on Job), 3, in PG 17:517.)
The refrigerium referred to by the Areopagite means those "good and happy places" spoken of by Peter and Alma. The Greek name for it is anapausis, a place where you rest for a time, and the famous Stowe Missal says the members pray for all who are in the anapausis, "from Adam down to the present day, whose names are known to God . . . and also for us (the living) sinners." (Cabrol, "Diptyques," 1073.)
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