This article presents a historiographical alternative formulated by Michel de Certeau to the history of religious ideas promoted in France after World War II. In response to the suggestion of the Society of Jesus to collaborate with the reconstitution of the Ignatian history, Certeau developed important critical studies about the Jesuits Pierre Favre and Surin. It is suggested that Certeau not only maintained certain affinity with the history of ideas in this process, by refuting the fragmentation of interpretation of religious discourse in different methodologies and knowledge and focusing on the understanding of their organizing principles, but also innovated to indicate that the need the recognition of a loss epistemic and existential, i...