Global Missions and the Journal de Trévoux: French Jesuits and Enlightened Cosmopolitanism

When early-modern Jesuit missionaries set out on their journeys to spread the Catholic faith to peoples in the far reaches of the globe, they were instructed to report back to their superiors on their experiences. These reports often morphed into the famous Jesuit Relations and the litterae annuae—the yearly letters sent from each Jesuit province to the superiors in Rome. These two productions comprise the means of internal communication amongst Jesuits in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Members of the Society of Jesus also participated in communication with the growing eighteenth-century “public.” Perhaps the best example of Jesuit interaction with the enlightened “public sphere” was the Jesuit-run literary journal, the Journal de Trévoux. A widely-acclaimed vessel of scientific and humanistic scholarship, the Journal de Trévoux became not only a mouthpiece for the Society and its perspectives but also a forum for enlightened learning.

            These two systems of discourse are most often studied separately from each other. The Relations and litterae annuae provide insight into Jesuit missionary activities throughout the globe; the Journal de Trévoux portrays Jesuit scholarly interaction with enlightened Europe. This paper seeks to bridge that gap by investigating how the Journal de Trévoux reported the information learned from Jesuit missionaries outside of Europe. In so doing, it will demonstrate how the Jesuits’ global reach contributed to the cosmopolitan influence that Jesuit intellectuals had on the French Enlightenment. As both missionaries and scholars, the Jesuits were able, perhaps better than any other organization or individual, to contribute to the Enlightenment’s project of universalism. Consequently, this study positions the Society of Jesus at the heart of the intellectual and cultural transformations of the Age of Enlightenment.