We don't have Valentinus's complete formulation of the creation story, only Irenaeus's summary, which shows he kept much of the Gnostic story but changed or smoothed over terms and rearranged things.
In the Gospel of Truth, he doesn't discard the Gnostic creation story; it's still an underlying context but is not emphasized or important enough to go into detail about.
Rejection of Valentinus by the Later Church:
The underlying cosmology of Valentinus, with its specific ideas of Aeons, eternal ideas in the mind of God, and the material world originating from a "mistake," was very different from what became proto-orthodox theology and cosmology.
His philosophy was somewhat elitist, dividing humanity into descendants of Cain (lacking a divine spark) and descendants of Seth (the "true humans").
While he presented his ideas in ways consonant with Christian scripture, many of his core ideas were speculative and not welcomed by orthodox theologians.
Gnostic View of the Lord's Supper (Eucharist):
There was no single Gnostic view due to the large number of different schools.
Valentinus's followers (Valentinians) practiced both baptism and the Eucharist.
They understood the Eucharist as "participation in redemption and reunion with the fullness," using a different symbolism than the proto-orthodox understanding of becoming the body and blood of Christ.
Wisdom (Sophia) and the Evil World in Gnosticism:
The association of wisdom (Sophia) with the mistake that causes the material world is a stumbling block for some.
Ancient biases may be at play, as the Aeon who makes the mistake and the entity Error are personified with female pronouns.
The Gnostics are not against wisdom; the problem is with a "disordered desire."
The Gnostic myth explains how "imperfection enters the cosmic system," not that wisdom is inherently bad.
In the Gospel of Truth, the ineffable God is untroubled by these events but must "create this path back" through a messenger of salvation (Christ).
Influence of Valentinus on Later Movements (Bogomils, Cathars):
There is no clear understanding of the direct influence, partly due to a lack of complete sources.
Medieval inquisitors and scholarly monks writing about later groups like the Cathars often used their lists of ancient heresies.
This "observer effect" meant that a spontaneously developed idea might be misidentified by a monk as an ancient heresy like Docetism or an ancient Gnostic idea.
Influence of Valentinus and his followers on Mani (Manichaeism):
The Hymn of the Pearl is not originally Manichaean but was likely adopted and reframed by Mani from a Gnostic Christian branch or school.
Mani, operating in the zone of Syria and Mesopotamia (Edessa), may have been more familiar with the St. Thomas school of Christian or Gnostic Christianity, which was prominent in the East.