Sanhedrin 031

2:
There is a common misunderstanding that the High Priesthood was passed on from father to son, by direct hereditary line back to Aaron, Moses' brother, the first High Priest. While it is true that in order to qualify for this office one had to be a descendant of Aaron, a 'Kohen', and while it may possibly be true that direct heredity (from father to son) was the general rule during the period of the first Bet Mikdash – and even that is uncertain – it is quite definitely the case that during the period of the second Bet Mikdash (and particularly during the latter part of that period) that the high priesthood was an appointment that was in the hands of the 'Head of Government'. The appointment had to be made, of course, from all the Kohanim but that was the only real restriction. It was customary that the appointment be made from the "priestly aristocracy", but this was not always the case. One one occasion, for example, King Herod 'imported' an 'ordinary' priest, one ĥanam'el ha-Miztri, a citizen of the city of Alexandria (where there was an enormous concentration of Jews) and appointed him High Priest.

3:
The first clause of our Mishnah stipulates the juridical status of the High Priest: as far as the system of justice was concerned he was an ordinary citizen. That is to say that he could be accused of any crime, sued for damages, and so forth. That being the case, he could also act as a judge (according to his personal qualifications). For a golden rule of halakhic jurisprudence is that only someone who may be tried by a court of law may sit in judgment upon others and, conversely, anyone who can sit in judgment must also be liable to judgment himself. (You will recall that the fifth mishnah of the previous chapter stipulated that a high priest who was accused of a capital crime must be tried before the Supreme Sanhedrin of seventy-one, and not a lesser Sanhedrin of twenty-three.)

4:
The Reisha [first clause] of our mishnah also stipulates that the high priest may offer testimony in a court of law and would be subject to testimony against him. If we translate this into modern terms we would have to say that the high priest may bring someone to trial by his testimony and may also stand accused because of someone else's testimony against him. In order to understand this we must explain that in the halakhic system there are two kinds of witness: there are the people offering testimony as to what they saw in order to clarify facts at law; but a very different function is reserved for the witnesses – at least two – upon whose evidence the charge is brought. These witnesses are, in fact, the accusers, it is they who bring the suspect to trial (we recall that there was no police force employed by the state to detect crime and bring suspects to justice). I refrain from going into further detail at this stage since these functions will be described and categorized by the Mishnah in later chapters.

To be continued.

I respond:

While this is nowhere stated with certain clarity, it seems to me reasonable to assume that the mishnah is referring to adult male Jews. I base this solely on the logical assumption that all the functionaries enumerated by the Gemara [see RMSG for 4th May last] are adult Jewish males.