Despite the formal non-comparability of these figures – the priest P.A. Florenskii and the founder of the publishing house “Musaget” Emil Medtner, – a careful reading of their texts reveals a surprising relationship. Thus, the term “concrete metaphysics” (“konkretnaia metafizika”), which is used by Florenskii in his most important work, U vodorazdelov mysli, is borrowed from Medtner's work Razmyshleniia o Gete, in which it is the equivalent of Goethe's term “Darstellung”. Both Medtner and Florenskii, each from their own perspective, interpret the purpose and intent of philosophy, deriving from Socrates and Plato, as surprise and mystery. Despite the fact that Florenskii mentions Medtner only once in U vodorazdelov mysli, Medtner's ideas were important for significant parts of Florenskii's chapter “Dialectics” and can be identified by a careful reading of both texts.