Gift of perseverance

The Gift of perseverance is the doctrine of Augustine of Hippo that persevering in the faith is a gift given by God, but a person can never know if they have the gift. According to Augustine, without having the gift of perseverance a person is damned, even if he seems to have been elected by grace. Augustine himself also believed that Cyprian held a similar view about perseverance being a work of God, and thus foreshadowing the Augustinian view. Some Calvinists argue that the Augustinian view foreshadows the Calvinist doctrine of perseverance of the saints.