[Aiwendil]

The Quenta is very much a 'transitional' phase - if seen in the context of Tolkien's life.

Well, the Legendarium was always evolving, so every phase save the very first and very last was in some sense ‘transitional'. Still, I agree that '30s period in particular can be seen as a transition between one long phase and another.

I'm not sure Tolkien saw the Quenta as necessarily superceding the LT, or that he had rejected everything it contained.

It's certainly true (and a point that CRT makes several times) that details found in an earlier narrative and omitted from a later one were often not rejected but merely suppressed due to compression. Still, there are many cases where a later text clearly and explicitly contradicts (and thus supercedes) an earlier one. Many of the more Pagan elements of the Lost Tales are clearly rejected in the late '20s and '30s - for instance, Makar and Measse, the warrior gods.

Again, I don't fundamentally disagree with you; I'm just quibbling. My points, really are:

1. The Legendarium contained, at every stage, a mixture of Paganism and Catholicism; the pre- LotR Silmarillion was not wholly Pagan and the post-LotR Silmarillion was not wholly Catholic.

2. It is overly simplistic to divide the Legendarium into pre- and post-LotR phases; there was considerable evolution both from 1914-1937 and from 1951-1973.

Changes made to the Legendarium to produce the Quenta were for artistic rather than theological reasons.

Now that's an interesting statement. Surely Tolkien did not see his post-LotR work on the Legendarium as non-artistic (or even non-artistic in motivation).