The Das ym selbs of 1523, one of Strasburg reformer Martin Bucer’s first writings, has always aroused the interest of researchers, who have often asked themselves, regarding this text, what were Bucer’s early theological influences. In addition to obvious influences from Luther, some structural parallels with Thomas Aquinas’ Summa theologiae have been detected several times, though they remain rather remote. However, what has never been noticed before is that Bucer himself explicitly places his work within a specific literary genre of the late Middle-Ages, that of the De statu perfectionis treatises, in which was discussed the question of the conditions in which the greatest degree of perfection can be reached in this world. The present article therefore wishes to compare Bucer’s work with three medieval treatises from that tradition, written by Thomas Aquinas, Jean Gerson and Heinrich Arnoldi. In this way, it will be possible to show that while Bucer was deeply influenced by this literary tradition, he attempted to give it a decisively new orientation, by bringing reformed theology into it: for Bucer, only the reforming doctrine of sola gratia is capable of freeing human perfection from the self-interest involved in the pursuit of salvation, thus making it possible to reach, on the basis of a really disinterested love for one’s neighbour, a true state of perfection.