In the first several decades of their encounter, the Jesuits and the Chinese Confucian scholars turned to ancient China and found ideas similar to those of Christianity. Such similarities led them to see congruences between Chinese (Confucian) and the Western (Christian) traditions. Many Confucian scholars resorted to the strategy of the so-called "burulun 補儒論", to complement Confucianism with Christianity. The Jesuits and Confucian scholars also came up with many examples of similarity between Western scientific ideas and those in ancient Chinese texts. In this atmosphere there arose among Chinese scholars a strong syncretic movement concerning Western scientific knowledge. In a spirit parallel to the "burulun", many Chinese scholars sought to complement the Chinese scientific tradition with Western science. They tried to put the Western scientific ideas in the framework of their own system. This paper will discuss this syncretic movement, giving particular attention to Xu Guangqi's famous remark, “Melt the materials of that side, and incorporate them into the mould of the [Chinese] Datong [calendar] (鎔彼方之材質, 入大統之型模),” which was frequently noted, and commented upon, by those engaged in the movement.