1 Introduction

Morality books (shanshu 善書) constitute a major genre of religious literature in early modern and modern China; by the sheer amounts and variety of texts, their inclusiveness and engagement with all traditions (Daoist, Buddhist, Confucian, sectarian, etc.) and their detailed discussion of both moral theology and practical aspects of life, they form a privileged venture point for examining the history of key religious concepts. The notion of xin is no exception, as it is well present from the earliest examples of the genre, with both meanings of trustworthiness in social relations and faith in divine principles (such as retribution). After quickly surveying these usages, I will focus on nineteenth-century morality books, where the concept takes on new prominence, especially as part of the “eight virtues” 八德 moral discourse. I will notably explore the meaning of xin in a huge divine law code, Yuding jinke jiyao 玉定金科輯要 (Compendium of Golden Rules, compiled on the Order of the Jade Emperor) (revealed in the context of the Taiping war), where a whole section is devoted to xin, and thousands of xin-related sins are discussed in detail. This will allow me to offer a hypothesis as to the role of xin in modern Chinese value systems.

2 Morality Books and Spirit-Writing

Morality books as a genre appear during the Song period and have developed continuously since then. They provide the readers (or listeners, when performed) with a guide for action, enjoining them to consider the consequences of all their actions; they are based on the law of moral retribution of good and evil (baoying 報應), which recent surveys have shown to be the most widespread common belief in China (and is claimed by many more people than specific religious affiliation),¹ and which is widely echoed in popular culture. Some elements of the morality books are revealed by gods, others are essays, comments, or stories written by identified humans. Some shanshu are general while others are devoted to specific aspects of moral theology (family life, sexuality, respect for life, etc.) The number of published morality books is staggering; it represents a very significant part of Chinese book production over time and down to the present day. Collectively, the genre is the site for a continuous production, since the Song period, of moral theology, integrating Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist, “sectarian,” and more elements.²

The most revered textual elements in the corpus of morality books consist of divine revelations through spirit-writing (fuji 扶乩, fuluan 扶鸞, feiluan 飛鸞, jiangbi 降筆). The importance of spirit-writing in modern Chinese cultural, intellectual, and religious life is now fully recognized. A major international project dedicated to the Daozang jiyao 道藏輯要 (Compendium of the Daoist Canon), a canon published around 1806, and republished in Chengdu in 1906, which contains a large number of spirit-written texts, has opened the field of Daoist studies to the study of spirit-writing as a (if not the) major avenue for intellectual innovation.³ Recent collections of modern Daoist texts are full of nineteenth and twentieth-century spirit-written texts. This should put to rest the long-held (and highly ideologically charged) theories of the modern decline of Daoism (and Buddhism). The authority of the gods revealing texts, which creates spaces for innovations impossible or risky in other genres, has made spirit-writing an engine for intellectual innovation throughout the premodern and modern periods.⁴

3 Xin 信 in Classical Morality Books (Song to Mid-Qing)

A preliminary survey of the use of the term xin in the most frequently republished, commented, and anthologized morality books, which we can consider the genre’s classics, shows that there were three main uses.

First, the term denotes proper social relations outside the family, especially between friends. In the Wenchang dijun Yinzhiwen 文昌帝君陰騭文 (Tract on Hidden Retribution, Revealed by the Imperial Lord Wenchang) (late Ming), the reader is enjoined to “respect his elder brothers and be faithful to his friends” (敬兄信友).⁵ In the Guansheng dijun Jueshi zhenjing 關聖帝君覺世真經 (True Scripture to Awaken the World) (early Qing), he is likewise commanded to “love his elder and younger brothers and be faithful to his friends” (愛兄弟，信朋友). Similarly, xin is framed as a parallel to familial virtues in Lüzu xingxin zhenjing 呂祖醒心真經 (True Scripture on Awakening the Minds, by Patriarch Lü) (1707), which admonishes “(those who) are not loyal to their lord, not filial to their parents, not respectful to their teachers and not faithful to their friends …” (不忠於君，不孝於親，不敬於師，不信於友).

Second, we find xin used in another well-established meaning since ancient times: honoring one’s word. For instance, in the earliest extant example of the “ledgers of merits and demerits” (gongguoge 功過格, which measure the consequences of each good or bad action), the twelfth-century Taiwei xianjun gongguoge 太微仙君功過格 (Ledger of Merits and Demerits of the Stellar Lord Taiwei), we read that “those who fail to honor their word or their contractual obligations will incur one demerit” (言約失信為一過).

Third, by the early Qing at the latest, xin also means to trust/believe in a principle. In Guandi’s Jueshi zhenjing already seen above, we read: “(The wicked) do not believe in the proper Way, but indulge in thievery and lust” (不信正道，姦盜邪淫), and again, “they do not believe in moral retribution, but encourage people to do evil” (不信報應，引人作惡). The Yuli baochao 玉歷寶鈔 (Precious Manuscript of the Jade Calendar), a description of the netherworld that most probably appeared ca. 1800 and quickly became one of the most popular and widely reprinted Chinese religious books, has similar formulations: “[P]eople in the world today do not believe in the retribution of actions, and prevent others from doing good” (凡世人不信因果，阻行 善事). In such cases (and one could quote many more examples), the object of xin—actually, most often, of the lack of xin—is the abstract principle that all actions carry retribution. Often, the object of xin is a general principle reachable by the human intellect, li 理, such as baoying zhili 報應之理. One could not be further away from credo quia absurdum, or Augustine’s credo ut intelligam. Indeed, in some passages xin is not at all about believing, but about deciding what to use as a moral compass. In the Jingshi gongguoge 警世功 過格 (Ledger of Merits and Demerits to Awaken the World), revealed by Lüzu in the eighteenth century, we find an interesting negative use of the term, where readers are told not be certain of their own moral reasoning: “If you hear of someone being virtuous, do not doubt (that this is right); if you hear of someone being vicious, do not be certain (that she is a fundamentally evil person)” (聞人有善而不疑，聞人有惡而莫信).⁶

But the object of this belief/trust can also be a more specific teaching or institution. For instance, in the Yuquan 玉詮 (Jade Expositions), an early Qing collection of revelations collected at a spirit-writing altar maintained by Suzhou elite literati, the gods complain that “those who believe/trust in (the teachings of) our spirit-writing altar are few … but (real) Daoists believe deeply in the truth of spirit-writing” (信壇者少 … 道人深信飛鸞).⁷

Xin as belief/trust is thus well present in the corpus of morality books, but it concerns ideas and words, rather than gods. Indeed, this usage was already common in medieval Daoist texts, where gods themselves, in their revelations, quite often threaten humans with expressions such as “if you do not trust my words …” (不信吾言).⁸ By contrast, gods do not usually ask humans to believe in/xin them; rather, they require reverence and worship (jing 敬, feng 奉). There are exceptions, such as in one early (Song-period) Wenchang revelation, his spirit-written autobiography—not strictly speaking a morality book, but a text closely related to the shanshu corpus—where the god berates those who “do not revere Heaven and Earth, do not xin the gods, abuse the old and disrespect their elders” (不敬天地，不信神明，狎侮老成，輕慢前輩).⁹ It is however quite likely that the meaning here is the existence of gods in general and the need to show them respect, rather than the belief in a given god.

This is not to say that morality book authors viewed disrespecting specific gods (and claiming that they do not exist is certainly an aggravated form of disrespect!) lightly. Indeed, blasphemy or sacrilege against one, or several, gods was considered, in morality books as well as many other types of texts, as a grave crime/sin, most often called xiedu 褻瀆. What is noteworthy is that this crime/sin (it is both a sin in morality books and a crime in the imperial penal code) was not categorized under xin; the latter is a mental act, whereas sacrilege is a physical act (and would typically come under the category of ritual behavior, li 禮).¹⁰

4 Xin 信 as an Encompassing Moral Virtue

Apart from having the three distinct but logically related meanings—being a reliable friend, honoring one’s word, believing in the truth of moral retribution and divine teachings—by the late Imperial period xin had come to refer to a generalized virtue, often expressed with the concept of jingxin 敬信, “reverence and trust/faith.” This compound word can in at least some cases be understood as referring to the combination of an internal, mental attitude (xin) and its outward consequences in one’s behavior (jing); in such a context, xin may also be translated as commitment (to morality). A rather early case in our corpus is the Wudangshan Xuantian shangdi chuixunwen 武當山玄天上帝垂訓文 (Instructions Revealed by Supreme Emperor of Dark Heavens from Wudang Mountains) (revealed 1302?), a fiery tract revealed by the god Zhenwu 真武, which has been reprinted and anthologized continuously since the Yuan period, and is today routinely chanted as scripture. Therein the god says: “I enjoin you people to be reverent and committed” (奉勸世人敬信).

The centrality of this notion is shown, for instance, by the title of a very popular anthology of morality books, the Jingxinlu 敬信錄 (Records of Reverence and Trust), first published in 1749 and often reprinted thereafter.¹¹ The Jingxinlu is a major example of the subgenre of piety books that offer in a short format the essential teachings of Chinese moral theology presented alongside a regimen of daily practice of recitation and self-examination.¹² Adepts follow precise instructions when reciting the Taishang ganyingpian 太上感應篇 (The Supreme Lord’s Tract on Action and Retribution) every morning, the first of which is to be “intensely committed,” duxin 篤信, that is to take each and every word that is recited as fully true and important. That is the basis for each action: “When one thought is xin, then you sow the seed of virtuous (action based on that) thought” (一念信種一念善根). “If your commitment is weak, you will receive small divine blessings; if it is strong, you will receive abundant blessings. But if you are half-committed and half-doubtful, then in the end you will only defeat yourself” (小信小福，大信大福。如或疑信相參， 終成自暴自棄).¹³

The early Qing Yuquan, already introduced above, offers several examples of such a use of xin as a generalized virtue that characterizes one who maintains both relations of mutual trust with humans and steadfast adherence to general moral principles.

Xin is the mother of all virtues, and forbearance is the foundation of all practices. The supreme natural goodness cannot be nurtured without xin; the absolute strength cannot be gained without forbearance. You enter (this self-cultivation path) with xin and fixate it with forbearance, and the Dao is already there!

信者眾善之母，忍者萬行之基，無上元良，非信不發。無量堅定，非忍不能。信以入之，忍以止之，道在此矣.¹⁴

Similarly,

Xin is the root of transcendence, you can reach transcendence through (the practice of) xin. Xin is the source of virtues, and virtues can be fulfilled through (the practice of) xin. Xin is the root of ritual, and ritual can be made to work through (the practice of) xin. Xin is like earth: earth gives life to all beings, and xin creates all virtues.

信爲道本，道由信入。信爲德源，德由信充。信爲法根，法由信運。信者，土也。土生萬物，信生萬善.¹⁵

5 Xin 信 in an Eschatological Context

An important element of the spirit-written morality books throughout their history, from the Song to the present day, is their strong eschatological inspiration.¹⁶ In this context, the virtue of xin appears as a necessary condition for salvation when one meets the apocalypse. An early and very expressive formulation of this idea is found in the Wudangshan Xuantian shangdi chuixunwen, which states:

The virtuous will get to see the light of day, but the wicked will not survive to witness the Great Peace. Those who are committed will get to cross the apocalypse, but those who do not believe will perish and lose their souls.

善者得見天日，惡者不見太平，信者得度末劫，不信喪命亡魂.¹⁷

Eschatological visions continued to imbibe morality books through history, and became particularly prevalent during the nineteenth century, when they were activated during the Taiping War as the best culturally available framework to make sense of the unfolding chaos.¹⁸ One of the most remarkable texts produced by spirit-writing during the war is the Yuding jinke jiyao 玉定金科 輯要 (Compilation of the Golden Rules, on Order of the Jade Emperor), a huge divine law code that lists in excruciating detail the punishments (expressed in years of life, and various disasters) for every imaginable sin, as well as rewards for do-gooders.¹⁹ The thousand-odd pages of this penal code were revealed in Hunan between 1856 and 1859, by Wenchang, who was given authorization to reveal it to humans from the Jade Emperor. An introduction explains that the Jade Emperor had decided to inflict an apocalypse as early as 1816, then proceeded to ask the gods to compile a precise code so as to decide rationally who should die, when, and how. This code was eventually promulgated in Heaven in 1848, but it took several supplications from Wenchang before the Jade Emperor allowed this information to be made available to humanity, so that at least some people could repent and save themselves. Numerous texts from this period asserted that gods did not cause human deaths in the war randomly or arbitrarily but, in fact, were strictly enforcing a celestial law code (tianlü 天律). The revelation of the Yuding jinke jiyao is simply the most developed expression of this idea.

The Yuding jinke jiyao is organized around the eight virtues (bade 八德), a framework for theorizing morality that had emerged during the first half of the nineteenth century and remained prevalent until the mid-twentieth century.²⁰ The eight virtues are filial piety, xiao 孝; brotherliness, ti 悌; loyalty, zhong 忠; xin 信; sense of propriety, li 禮; sense of justice, yi 義; integrity, lian 廉; and sense of shame, chi 恥.

By the nineteenth century, then, xin had become one of the core categories for thinking about morality, and the Yuding jinke jiyao offers a good hundred pages of very detailed regulations about it, thus describing in remarkable detail the contents and extent of this category. While a comprehensive description would be tedious, the acts that are defined as being not xin fall under three main categories: to abuse people’s trust (friends, youth, elderly); to renege on one’s word; to engage in unethical business dealings (breach of contract).

Furthermore, one of the Yuding jinke jiyao’s features is that it details its descriptions by social class. We thus have a class-specific description of what it means to lack xin in particular social contexts. For slaves/servants, it basically means to disobey. For merchants, it primarily refers to tampering with scales and measures—a very important crime discussed in all morality books. For scholars, it means failing to serve as an example to others, to not return books, to spread rumors, and to disrespect masters. That xin is a virtue for which scholars must set an universal example is well explained by an item in the code punishing scholars whose “commitment to the Dao is not intense enough” (信道不篤) (part of the section on disrespect towards masters). Finally, for officials, it means to abuse the weak, and, interestingly, to steal from temples objects belonging to the gods (shenqi 神器).

Many of these descriptions do not come as a surprise; they fall quite naturally under the category of xin as social trustworthiness that was in place long before the emergence of the morality books in general, and the Eight Virtues tradition in particular. Some instances, however, may be less obvious to us, and deserve some attention. For peasants, under the heading “Heaven Has Four Seasons” 天有四時, one form of non-xin is to treat animals and plants in a way that is contrary to what the season requires (逆天殄物). This is a very ancient idea, going back to the Yueling 月令 tradition and the earliest Daoist precepts, but its categorization as a question of xin seems new. We may understand that when xin had become the generalized virtue of being fully committed to the natural universal moral order, any action that goes contrary to that moral order results from a lack of xin.

6 Conclusion

This quick overview has shown that when morality books developed from the twelfth century onward, their use of the notion of xin inherited all of the meanings of the terms that existed at the time. It thus referred simultaneously to xin as based on reciprocal trust (credit, faithfulness to one’s word), but early on also aggregates the idea of asymmetrical trust in an abstract principle. In morality books, one must be xin to both one’s friends and one’s moral principles (based on conviction in the reality of moral retribution). In that respect, xin bears comparison to concepts that in other cultures have also been translated as “faith” but cover much more ground, like Latin credo and Sanskrit śrāddha, the latter being a direct conceptual source for the Chinese Buddhist use of xin.

The genre of morality books further elaborated the notion and by late imperial times, xin, while always keeping its sense of trustworthiness, had expanded to become a general virtue informing all mental and physical actions, which we might translate as “commitment to natural moral values.” This commitment is the result of a rational decision, because natural moral values are knowable by observation and reasoning, but at the same time it is exalted as the foundation of all of one’s religious life and eventual salvation.